Two Printers to One Print Server Port

A while back, the idea of duplex printing for our computer labs was thrown around. Once approved we had to come up with an easy way to implement this while still giving the student an option to print simplex. To make things easier, we have a print manager software called Papercut. There is a duplex feature to turn on duplex printing for the specified printer, however, from there on - duplex is strictly enforced, even if a student turned off duplex in their favorite program. This presented a challenge as most of our labs only contain one physical printer. So, to get around that challenge, we setup a "new printer" using an existing port on the print server. Essentially this is like having two virtual printers to one physical printer.

So as you can see, I have printer 1C05-1 with Duplex enforced (on Papercut side). To add a "Simplex" printer, using the same port click on "Add a printer." 

Next, click on "Add a local printer"

Choose the same port, in this case "1C05P1" which is the dns name in which printer 1C05-1 is assigned

Once the printer is added, you now have two virtual printers, using the same port. So essentially, a student can now choose the "1C05-1-Simplex" printer to print 1-sided print jobs, while leaving 1C05-1 as the default, duplex virtual printer. Keep in mind, this is still one - physical printer.

On the server, if you go to Print Server Properties, you can see two (virtual) printers are assigned to the one port.