Browser-based printing extended to mobile devices

(created on: 11.03.15)

To meet the increasing demand to manage the printing of web-based documents from mobile devices, Mead & Co has extended ScriptX - making it simple to print labels, badges and other documentation from any mobile device equipped with a web browser.

Mobile device browsers provide poor control over the printing of web-based documents; yet this control is exactly the thing that ScriptX provides to Microsoft’s Internet Explorer browser on desktop PCs. So to achieve the control required, printing needs to be shifted from the mobile device and its browser to the Microsoft Windows Server that delivered the content. This is what ScriptX Server-side printing provides, in an easy-to-use solution.

In content delivered to PCs, developers using ScriptX in their solution can provide a ‘Print’ button on the page that the user clicks and the document is printed at the client. Similarly, the developer can provide a ‘Print’ button on content delivered to mobile devices; the mobile user will touch the button, but instead of printing on the client the request is delivered to the server where the required document is printed to any local or networked printer available to the server. All of this comes with the familiar full level of control provided by ScriptX.

The whole process uses the existing Microsoft Windows based infrastructure and extends controlled printing to every type of tablet device, or smartphone, provided it has a web browser.

Extending ScriptX to mobile initiated printing increases efficiency, cuts waste, reduces queues and improves customer satisfaction. Potential use cases include:

• Printing event badges or travel documents without attendees needing to wait at the check in desk
• Speeding up patient processing, by taking details from patients as they enter a surgery or hospital, and then using them to create wristbands and other documentation
• Improving logistics workflow by faster printing of labels or shipping information, initiated from the warehouse floor or shipping bay

Mobile initiated printing requires the ScriptX Server-side licence, which can be purchased from the ScriptX website at an annual cost of $1,250. Free code samples are available, enabling organisations to try out the solution before investing.