I'm not sure if this is even possible, but does anyone know how I might be able to trap Print Action. Would prefer a cross platform solution like Java or something, but it absolutely has to work on a Mac (Unix).

What this is intended for is for a small advertising/print agency where I work, we need to track color copies and assign then to a client number. So when ever some one prints to a specific printer a prompt would come up and ask for a job number then stores it in a db of some sorts and at the end of the month we bill our clients for prints/copies we made for them. It became an issue this month when our printer lease was thousands of dollars and no client was charged, since we did not keep track.

Any suggestions? :rolleyes:

Hi everyone,

Java is your answer. Its cross platform. For more information you can check the PrinterJob and Printable classes of Java

This can only be achieved if your main application is written in java as well.

Richard West

Thanks for your suggestions, but this isn't a solution for me. I work for a design firm and our graphics people print from a wide variety of apps, and i don't think even one of which is written in java.

I was hoping for a way to interface with printer drivers or something of that nature and each time someone prints the drivers would send a command to launch an external app that would just collect simple info before a job would be sent to the printer. The external app would most likely be java based w/ db connection.