In virtual or cloud-based environments, and Citrix environments in particular, printing remains a challenge for IT. The main reason is that applications and data are managed centrally, but the IT team still has to manage the printers and their respective drivers on the endpoint device locally, in a printing intensive work environment, generating problems such as:

  • Printer driver update involving manual update of the driver on every endpoint,
  • Increase of complexity if different users use different printers,
  • Huge bandwidth consumption generating slowness in other applications or freezing of the session.

“Citrix Universal Print Driver” (Citrix UPD) was created to tackle some of these issues with just one driver to manage.

However, some challenges remain until today, even with Citrix UPD:

  • It supports only essential printing functions, and printers with multiple functions do not work with it (scanners, fax…).
  • It can be used with limited printer drivers. So, the company can either use only the supported printers or has to use an incompatible driver with the printer, which has its own set of problems.

That is why it can be valuable to combine Citrix UPD with ZeePrint, ZeeTim printing solution for remote printing environment.

ZeePrint comes with all the features provided by Citrix UPD. But apart from solving the everyday printing challenges, ZeePrint also has many other features in its arsenal that are currently not provided by UPD:

Bandwidth reduction 

One of the most significant advantages that ZeePrint brings to the table compared with Citrix UPD is reducing the bandwidth consumed by print jobs. When the user initiates a print job in the remote session, ZeePrint compresses it before sending it to the endpoint. Once the endpoint receives the job, it will uncompress the print job and send it to the printer. All this communication is done via a dedicated virtual channel, and it can efficiently reduce the bandwidth consumption up to 30 times

Centrally manage the print server 

Multiple print servers are involved in a scenario where printing something is common for most users. These servers might be classified to handle different printers based on their physical location, subnet, department, etc. In such cases, ZeePrint allows you to manage all these servers from a single console known as ZeePrint Administrator. It can discover all of the print servers in the enterprise network, and administrators can configure them from a single point. There’s no longer a need to connect to each print server one by one to modify specific parameters.  

Print data reporting 

ZeePrint comes with a web-based data reporting platform known as ZeePrint Stats. This platform provides excellent insight, including: 

  • The number of print jobs performed for a given duration 
  • The printer with the highest number of print jobs 
  • The amount of bandwidth consumption reduced 
  • And many more details 

Apart from the above insight, it also contains a list of all of the print jobs performed on print servers and various details concerning a print job. It can be constructive for analysis or auditing purposes.   

ZeePrint Statistics dashboard
Data retrieved from ZeePrint Statistics

Print archive 

In some scenarios, an organization must archive the printed documents due to specific regulations. ZeePrint allows you to do it. If configured, all the print jobs will be archived on a dedicated server, and users can be enabled to see their print history. They also can reprint the past print jobs via the ZeePrint Mobile application. 

Printer mapping (format, doc name, option, printer name) 

One of the most interesting features of ZeePrint is the ability to map the local printer. This mapping can be done based on: 

  • Format of the document 
  • Name of the document 
  • Printing properties of the document (paper size, colour, paper tray, etc.) 
  • Printer name in the remote session 

This feature can be handy when there are multiple printers locally, and each printer is for a specific type of print job. Once configured, the user prints on one virtual printer and ZeePrint will redirect that print job to the correct printer. Thus, it is a fluid experience for the users, and they do not have to remember each type of printer.  

Direct Printing (via LPT or COM Port) 

For the printers connected to LPT or COM port, ZeePrint can send the print jobs directly to them without going through the print spooler. It is as simple as copying and pasting a file.  

Edge/special cases 

Being a mature product, ZeePrint has been adapted many times for our clients to meet a lot of edge cases. No matter how specific your requirement is, it is very likely that it has already been implemented by ZeePrint in the past. If the need is not handled in the past, ZeePrint is flexible enough to accommodate it. Contact us for more information.

To conclude, ZeePrint with Citrix UPD is like having an extra player on the team. It will provide you with additional features, making the life of the IT team easier. To know more about how ZeePrint can work in your environment, please get in touch with us, and we will be glad to take it further from there. You can also test the solution by yourself.