Creating an application print queue

Question

We've received a rather tricky business requirement.

Users should be able to store print jobs in the application, until the user explicitly decides to send the jobs to the actual printer.

The easy solution (the way I see it) is to have a small windows application installed on the clients computers which stores the jobs in a queue locally on the clients computers. Anyone know if such a program exists?

The implement-ourselves option seems rather complicated. Storing the printed files in a database in either, word, pdf, xps or prn format until the user decides to print. This option is further complicated by that it should be possible to do it directly from MS Word. Any pointers to how to go about it?

Answer 1

I don't have any specifics or code examples for you, but I do recommend opening Visual Studio up and creating a Microsoft Word 2007 plugin (is the requirement version-free?) and playing with the available APIs.

I know in our organization, we implemented a very similar solution using a Word plugin project. Unfortunately, I know little more about it so I can't be of much help other than stating that it is possible.

Answer 2

See this solution, it's not free, but what they say sounds promising.