How to switch between two USB printers on one USB port

printerusb

I have two USB Zebra label printers, same make and model. Each is loaded with a different type of label. I would like to connect them both to the same computer, via a switch box. This way, the computer will think there is one printer connected, and I can switch it back and forth to either printer, depending on the label type I need.

The label printing software we're using only allows one printer to be set up, that's why we need the switch box. It's not practical to replace the software at this point. We could also hook up one printer, and manually swap the labels as needed, but we're trying to avoid that.

We looked at this switchbox 2 PC to 1 USB 2.0 Device AB Switch Box from Amazon, but it lets two computers share the same printer, which is not what we need.

In the days of parallel port printers, these "A/B" style switch boxes were fairly common.

Best Answer

This looks like it would do what you want: http://www.ambery.com/2x2usb20rosw.html
Check out the cross-routing diagram a little bit down the page and take the second PC out of the picture.

Related Solutions

Internet Explorer doesn’t keep default printer settings

A person with a similar problem has found a solution at this link www.computing.net - ie7-default-paper-size.

He/She found that IE would revert to 5.08mm bottom print margin if an attempt was made for anything below this measument. Your 4.09 may be kicking this very trigger and thus IE reverts to it comfortable 5.08 when you switch printers.

IE would not set the bottom print margin to anything less that 5.08mm via the page setup menu, it would automatically revert to this number if something smaller was entered. Changing the margins in the registry (hkey_users\\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\PageSetup\margin_bottom) stuck for smaller margins.

Windows – How to map a virtual COM port to a physical USB port

There is a simple way to do it using standard Windows commands. Lee Harrison's link shows this command, but here's a short description. Start by making the printer shareable (from Printer Properties > Sharing tab).

Now, start a command prompt and type:

NET USE COM1: //pc_name/printer_share_name /persistent:yes

Here, pc_name is the name of the sharing PC, and printer_share_name is the share name you gave the printer when you set up the share.

From then on, anything you send to COM1 will be re-routed to the printer.

There is one proviso however - and it applies regardless of which method you use to get the data to the printer, hardware or software:

As your program only knows about COM1, I assume it will send plain text to the printer. Many USB-only printers do NOT understand plain text, and will just ignore it altogether. Printers that do this are called host-based printers, where the Windows graphics engine converts the page into dots on the paper, rather than letting the printer do the conversion. They are mostly the low cost printers, especially inkjets but also some lasers. Printers that do understand text need to support a language called PCL5. PCL6 printers usually also support PCL5, but PCL3 printers do not.

If you tell me your printer model I can check what language it supports.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

Internet Explorer doesn’t keep default printer settings

Windows – How to map a virtual COM port to a physical USB port

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