Print To Review

SmartBear Print To Review employs a Windows printer driver to submit documents for review. Windows applications can use Print To Review to add their document to a new or existing review. Documents are uploaded as images of the original document.

Features

Compatibility

Windows XP SP2, Server 2003, Windows Vista and later Windows releases running on both 32-bit x86 and 64-bit hardware. Not all of these platforms are fully tested. Report any incompatibilities or problems to SmartBear. Please ask us if you're interested in support on other Windows platforms.

Print To Review requires the .NET 3.5 Framework. If it's not already installed on your system, the installer will prompt you to install the .NET framework first.

Image Quality

Like any printer driver, the image quality of documents uploaded for review is a function of the resolution and color depth. The default settings are for 150 DPI and 256 colors with halftoning. For improving font quality on text documents, 300 DPI black and white would be a better setting. For documents where the picture quality and color is important, 300 DPI and true color can be used. Keep in mind, however, that this latter setting can render extremely large documents. The driver compresses the image outputs in PNG format, but at that setting a busy color bitmap (i.e., without much compression) can easily generate image sizes upwards of 10MB per page.

Print To Review will not upload documents bigger than the client is allowed to upload (see upload truncation size in client properties). Excess pages will be replaced with a page indicating that the document has been truncated.

Installation

Make sure the GUI Client is installed and configured. Then run the Print To Review standalone installer, available here.

If the Print To Review is installed to the same directory as the CodeCollaborator client, then the PATH environment variable will not need to be updated. Otherwise, the Print To Review installer will update the PATH to include the installed application folder, and will display a notification that a reboot is necessary before Print To Review can be used.

Uninstalling

Run the original installer, or uninstall via the Control Panel Add/Remove Programs menu. If a manual uninstall becomes necessary, refer to Advanced User Uninstall.

Windows releases starting with Vista, including Windows 7 and Server 2008, exhibit some different behaviors than previous Windows releases. Most notably, Windows UAC (User Account Control) on these platforms introduces some security features which affect the install, uninstall, and operation of Print To Review.

Install and uninstall for Print To Review should be with an administrator account (not necessarily the Administrator user but a user with administrator privileges) or from a console window run as Administrator, for the most straightforward experience. Otherwise, depending on your UAC settings, you will be prompted during install and uninstall to run with Administrator privileges.

During uninstall, you may be prompted with a notification that the Print Spooler is using the files:

Select Continue at this prompt to uninstall the driver files.

When uninstalling on Windows Vista or later, errors can occur if the spooler still has the driver files locked. This occurs when uninstalling within about a minute of printing to Print To Review and leaves Print To Review in an uninstallable state. The only simple recourse is to reinstall Print To Review and then uninstall again. Any of these steps will avoid this issue:

Upgrading

Print To Review does not support upgrades. To install a new version, please follow the uninstall instructions above, restart your system, and then install the desired version.

To Print To Review

From within your Windows application, click Print and select Print To Review as the Printer.

After printing your document, the GUI Client is launched to add the document to a review. On Windows Vista and later, depending on the UAC settings, GUI Client launches without foreground focus, and instead is displayed as a highlighted icon in the task bar and must be selected. Then choose a new or existing review, and next you will be prompted to enter a name for your document. This will be the name associated with the document images in the review:

Note that you may include path characters in the name, and the document name will be displayed with the path in the review. Once you've given the required information and click Finish, a browser window will open pointing to the review with your document images.

Limitations and Known Issues

Documents to be uploaded to the CodeCollaborator server are currently limited in size by the file truncation size defined in the Java VM Client Properties. Higher resolutions and color depths of Print To Review jobs increase the document image sizes uploaded for review. For documents that are too large, pages will be uploaded until the file truncation limit is encountered, and the remaining pages are discarded. Print To Review appends a page to these documents indicating the truncation. Printing at a lower resolution or in black and white is a workaround. Otherwise, increase the defined file truncation size.

Printing in a Remote Terminal environment currently cannot launch the GUI Client to print a document. These jobs are held in the print queue.

Troubleshooting

Windows XP SP2 and Server 2003

To submit problem reports or suggestions, open Add/Remove Programs from the Control Panel and select Support Information under Print To Review. Submit the displayed version number along with your description of the issue.

Windows Vista platforms and later

To submit problem reports or suggestion, open Programs and Features and find SmartBear Print To Review. The version number will be listed in the column labeled Version. If the Version column is not shown, click on the column headers and select to add the Version column. Submit the displayed version number along with your description of the issue.

Advanced User Uninstall

We of course recommend using Print To Review as installed by the installer. However, if it is customized in anyway (such as renaming the printer) or if a manual uninstall is otherwise desired, follow these steps.

Print To Review is installed as both an application and a printer driver. Manual uninstall of the driver can be done just as with any other printer driver. The print driver and port monitor can be deleted through the Server Properties dialog in the Print Spooler. The order of uninstalling the driver should be: