Hi, You are correct on point a, I would like to parse the print job to see if duplex was selected. What is confusing me is how will the port monitor know that duplex is selected or more importantly CAN it know? surly the way duplex is selected ona n HP printer is different than where its selected on a Xerox? Or is it that when one is selected the Port Monitor speaks directly to windows so it doesn't matter what driver the job was spooled in? My aim is to produce a port monitor that acts like an application, It will parse the job and check its properties and if the properties are not allowed change them. From Mono to colour and so on and so forth. I know it cant be done because its spooled but what I can do is once the job is spooled I will parse it using the port monitor and then if the properties are not acceptable by a user's policy I will convert the PS file to PDF and reprint it with the properties needed. Also quick note it would be a good feature if i can police according to job type so only print in Mono if its an email, can the port monitor determine a print jobs original format? (.doc .pdf .html) and if not then maybe the application the job was printed from ? RegardsAdam Subject: [WinPrnDev] Re: Port monitors Date: Thu, 2 Sep 2010 13:32:48 +0200 From: Christoph.Lindemann@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx To: winprndev@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Hi Adam, It is not clear to me if you want to “query” the >print job< or the physical printer, or like this: a) parse the print job to see if duplex was selected/used b) query the physical printer, if there is a duplex unit present in the printer Could you please elaborate a little more on this? Also feel free to tell us more, about what you are ultimately trying to accomplish, might be you are trying to tackle this problem in the wrong way. /christoph From: winprndev-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:winprndev-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Adam Johnson Sent: Thursday, September 02, 2010 1:17 PM To: winprndev@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Subject: [WinPrnDev] Port monitors Hello Experts. I am experimenting with writing my own print driver which will enable users to print to. My question is with many strange and wonderful print drivers around, can I write my own Port monitor that will parse and interrogate information given to the print driver. For example if I am using a Ricoh print driver and a user clicks "File,Print" it comes up with the Ricog print dialog, so if a user clicks color and duplex. Is there any way the port monitor can verify this? or interrogate the PS file to get job properties? If so then what about the other more complex information like Collate? Number of pages on the X and Y direction? Resolution (DPI) ? To the even more specific information that is device dependent like is staples on? I am trying to set up a policy enforcement program on the print server but would like all users to print to one common printer, my port monitor will then interrogate the print job properties and check it against the database? Is that remotely possible? Regards Adam