Printing

Actually making the printers print is an arcane art, and is the only part of our job that still uses a creaking, old Microsoft Access interface. It’s also not something we’ve fully documented yet. In the meantime, here are a few pointers:

• Don’t close the Access window with the document(s) you’re printing until you’ve actually printed them.
• Do close the Access window with the document(s) you’ve printed as soon as you have printed them, and remember to confirm that they have printed.
• For printing night pouches, use the specific night pouch report, page through it until you find the CID of the person who has the night pouch, then select that page for printing by page number.
• If the ribbon printer goes awry stop it printing as quickly as possible: either just turn it off (switch on the right hand side) or eject the ink foil (lift the lid, then pull the two white toggles on either side of the foil feeder).
• You can check if a character pack or passport has printed by looking at the player page on the web interface, on the “Documents” tab. If you click the “Details” button, you can tick or untick the “Document Printed” box: ticking it when it isn’t ticked will remove it from the print queue without actually printing anything, while unticking it will add the document back to the print queue based on what would currently be printed for that character.

To print player packs and ribbons

1. Add the document to the print queue from any computer where you are logged in to the PD crew interface:

   For newly-created characters

   • Navigate to the character page.
   • Click “Play Character” from the buttons on the right hand side of the page.
   • Click “Confirm” in the dialogue box.
   • Click “Event Pack” from the buttons on the right hand side of the page.
   • Click “Confirm”.
   • At this point, either ask the player to wait while you proceed to the next steps and make up their pack immediately while they wait, or fill out a query slip (including CID to make sure the pack for the right character gets printed!).

   For missing packs

   • Confirm that you really can’t find the pack anywhere.
   • Look up the player.
   • Confirm that they are booked for the event by checking the “Events” and “Bookings” tabs. If they aren’t, a booking will need to be processed – escalate if you’re not sure how to do this.
   • Confirm that they have an active character, i.e. that under the “Characters” tab they have a character set to “Played”. If they’re not, see For newly-created characters.

   For ribbons

   • Navigate to the ribbon page.
   • Click “Print ribbon” from the buttons on the right hand side of the page.

2. Print the documents from a computer connected to the printers:
   • If it’s not already open, launch the Access database frontend.
   • From the row of buttons and the like across the top of the screen, click “Print Queue”. If the “Print Queue” window is already open, refresh it by closing it and then reopening it using this button.
   • In the “Print Queue” window, click the line corresponding to the document you want to print.
   • In the “Print Queue” window, click “Print” from the buttons on the right-hand side. A new window will open up, showing a preview of documents of the selected type that are in the queue to print.
   • Press Ctrl + P on the keyboard, or right-click on the print preview and then click Print.
   • Make any necessary adjustments to the printer settings (e.g. which printer and tray to use – exactly what these are varies between events but is usually written down and next to the printing PC).
   • Click “OK”.
   • For the ribbon printer, press the “Feed” button a couple of times to get you the extra length you need to cut the ribbon.
   • Check the documents produced by the printers. Once you’re satisfied they’ve come out correctly, close the print preview window and confirm that all documents have printed.