Print routing

I have three printers attached to my main work computer. Each printer is used for different jobs

A - Epson R1900 for high quality inkjet englargement printing
B - Canon Selphy for passport, ID and index printing
C - Canon MX-496 for plain paper document printing

Obviously, the right job has to be sent to the right printer, and sometimes this can go wrong when its busy and there is a lot of work on.

What I would like to know is if its there is a setting in Win 10 which I can specify the default printer for each particular application, e.g

For Photoshop, the default printer would be A
For ACDSee the default printer would be B
For Adobe Reader, MS Word, MS Excel, the default printer would be C

Yes, I know there is the ability to check which printer is selected before hand, and that usually happens, but sometimes it gets very busy and people forget to check. Also, some applications (e.g. Adobe Reader) have a "print" button that simply sends to the system default printer without checking.

Failing that, does anyone know of software that will do this for me. I tried looking for "print managers" but they seem to be more oriented towards keeping records of printers used rather than what I am wanting.

There isn't anything built into Windows to do this. There are third party programs that can though.
http://application.software.informer...inter-windows/

Here is one way to do it, create a batch file to start the three programs and make the first line of the batch file to read:
RUNDLL32 PRINTUI.DLL,PrintUIEntry /y /n "Name of your Printer"
Start Your Program here

It worked on all my local printers and the printers on the network with an ip address but did not work with the one printer that is shared on my server.

Anyway, hope this helps.

Neemobeer said:

There isn't anything built into Windows to do this. There are third party programs that can though.
http://application.software.informer...inter-windows/

I can;t figure out that page. It seems to have a lot of software, none of which seems relevant.

play2mefish said:

Here is one way to do it, create a batch file to start the three programs and make the first line of the batch file to read:
RUNDLL32 PRINTUI.DLL,PrintUIEntry /y /n "Name of your Printer"
Start Your Program here

It worked on all my local printers and the printers on the network with an ip address but did not work with the one printer that is shared on my server.

Anyway, hope this helps.

I'll try this, thanks

Out of curiosity I tried the following for my printer on a shared server and this is the correct syntax to make it work for a shared printer:

RUNDLL32 PRINTUI.DLL,PrintUIEntry /y /n "\\pcname\sharename"

Now I can change my default printer using a batch file. Enjoy!

OK, I tried the batch file thing... it works, but it has limitations

So long as the application the batch file controls is opened to print a job, and then closed again, it works fine. However, I have all three applications (Photoshop, ACDSee and Acrobat Reader open at the same time (they are opened on startup every morning). The last one to open (Acrobat Reader) sets the default printer. If I print a document on Acrobat Reader, it goes to the correct (Canon MX496) printer, but if I then go to ACDSee and print a document, I find it also goes to the Canon MX496. If I close and reopen ACDSee, then it goes to the correct (Canon Selphy) printer, but when I now go back to Acrobat Reader to print a document, it goes to the Canon Selphy.

I am no better off then I was before. What I think is happening is that each time an application prints, it is setting the system default printer to whichever one it used, and the other applications are picking up on this. There has to be a way for each application to have its own printer set permanently without reference to the system default printer.