PrinterOn Printers
A PrinterOn printer is not a physical printer, but rather a virtual printer. That is, it is a definition that maps to a physical printer and defines its printing behavior and supported features. The PrinterOn server acts as middleware between the user and a physical printer. When users submit jobs to a PrinterOn printer, the PrinterOn server directs those jobs to the physical printer or print queue defined for that printer, referred to as an output destination. Before users can submit print jobs to a PrinterOn printer, you must define that printer’s output destination.
PrinterOn printers need not map to physical printers on a one-to-one basis. The benefit of creating virtual printers is that you can specify different printing behavior or access privileges for the same physical printer. You simply create multiple PrinterOn printer definitions, apply different configuration settings to each, and then map them to the same physical printer. Although it is the same physical printer printing the jobs in each case, to the user, they appear as distinct printers with different available features.
For example, consider a hotel with a color printer. The hotel could create one printer definition that points to their color printer and allows users to print in color at a specific price per sheet. They could then create a second printer definition that points to the same physical printer, but restricts print jobs to black and white and charges a lower rate per sheet. For frequent guests, they could also create a third printer definition for the same printer that does not charge a fee at all.