Skip to content
BizPrintBizPrintBizPrint Docs
getbizprint.com

Set up the Save to PDF printer in the BizPrint desktop app

This page shows you how to turn on the Save to PDF printer in the BizPrint desktop app. It is for merchants and staff with a Windows, Mac or Linux station who want a print job saved as a PDF file instead of printed on paper. The BizPrint Android app does not have this option.

It is useful for testing, or for keeping a digital copy of what BizPrint sends. When a print job goes to the Save to PDF printer, nothing comes out of a printer. The app saves a PDF file in the folder you choose.

Before you start

Section titled “Before you start”

Turn on the Save to PDF printer

Section titled “Turn on the Save to PDF printer”
  1. Click the BizPrint icon in the system tray (the menu bar on a Mac).
  2. Click Open Settings. The app window opens on the home screen.
  3. Click Setup PDF Printer. The PDF Printer Configuration screen opens.
  4. Click Select PDF Directory.
  5. Choose the folder where you want the PDF files saved.
  6. Confirm your choice in the folder window.

The app returns to the home screen and tells BizPrint about the new printer. After a moment, Save to PDF appears in the Printers list of your station in the BizPrint dashboard.

If you close the folder window without choosing a folder, the Save to PDF printer stays off.

Use the Save to PDF printer

Section titled “Use the Save to PDF printer”

In WooCommerce, you use the Save to PDF printer by adding it to a printer location, the same way you pick any other printer. See Create a printer location in the BizPrint plugin for WooCommerce. Every printer selected in that location receives the job, so if you only want a PDF, use a printer location that has Save to PDF as its only printer. Otherwise a test also prints on paper.

To test it, you print an existing order again. Before you do, do these checks so you do not print an order twice by mistake:

  1. Look at the paper at each printer in the location for your newest order’s printout. If it already printed, the test prints it again on any paper printer in the location.
  2. Check that no printer in the location is in the middle of a real order.
  3. Check the status of the latest print jobs in the BizPrint dashboard.
  4. Wait for the station to finish anything it is still printing, whatever status the job shows.
  5. Go to WooCommerce > Print Manager in WordPress.
  6. Click the Support tab.
  7. Check Queue Status in Print Job Queue. If a print request could not reach BizPrint, the plugin may keep it in the Print Job Queue and try again later.
  8. Wait for any pending or processing jobs to finish.

Do not send a test while a job for that order is pending, connecting-to-printer or processing.

Then make the PDF:

  1. Click the Printers tab in Print Manager.
  2. Click the name of the printer location in the Description column. Choose the printer location that uses Save to PDF.
  3. Click Test print. The button appears only for a saved location when your store has at least one order. It prints the newest real order. If the printer location uses Product Mapping, Shipping Mapping or Metadata Mapping (add-ons included with some plans), Test print still follows the location’s mapping rules, so an order that does not match those rules does not print there.
  4. Open the folder you chose.
  5. Look for the new PDF file.

Each PDF file is named after the print job’s description, and a new file with the same name can replace an earlier one. Copy files you want to keep to another place.

Change the folder

Section titled “Change the folder”
  1. Click the BizPrint icon in the system tray (the menu bar on a Mac).
  2. Click Open Settings. The app window opens on the home screen.
  3. Click Setup PDF Printer.
  4. Click Select PDF Directory.
  5. Choose the new folder.
  6. Confirm your choice in the folder window. The app returns to the home screen.

Turn off the Save to PDF printer

Section titled “Turn off the Save to PDF printer”
  1. Click the BizPrint icon in the system tray (the menu bar on a Mac).
  2. Click Open Settings. The app window opens on the home screen.
  3. Click Setup PDF Printer.
  4. Click Disable PDF Printer. The app returns to the home screen.

The Save to PDF printer stays in your station’s Printers list in the BizPrint dashboard, but it is offline and no longer saves files. A printer location that still has it selected no longer makes PDF files. Its other selected printers keep printing as before. For each printer location that used Save to PDF:

  1. Go to WooCommerce > Print Manager in WordPress.
  2. Click the Printers tab.
  3. Click the name of the printer location in the Description column.
  4. Remove Save to PDF from Printers, or choose another printer in its place.
  5. Click Save Changes.

If Save to PDF was the only printer in a location, that location has nothing to print to until you choose another printer.

Section titled “Related pages”

Need help? Contact BizPrint support at https://getbizprint.com/support/.