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Version: Next (nightly)

Document printing

Cobblr can send documents to a real printer on your network, the CUPS/IPP kind. This is separate from QR labels. It's for printing regular paper output.

To set one up:

  1. Add a printer with your CUPS server's address and the queue name.
  2. Choose how Cobblr reaches it: Direct URL or Via edge bridge.
  3. Give it a type and its widest media if you also want labels on it.

Configure a printer once​

Point Cobblr at your CUPS server one time (its address and the queue name), and from then on any module, app, or person can print to it over IPP.

  • Nothing installs on Cobblr's side.
  • No driver setup repeats per user.

Direct, or through the edge bridge​

When you add a printer, its manager field asks how Cobblr reaches it:

  • Direct URL when Cobblr and the printer share a network (a self-hosted box on your LAN).
  • Via edge bridge when they don't (Cobblr running elsewhere, reaching a printer at your site). The bridge takes the job and speaks IPP to CUPS locally, the same way Cobblr reaches machines it can't touch directly.

On the bridge route:

  1. Pick the bridge from the list of ones your workspace already knows rather than retyping its address.
  2. Press Ask the bridge what it serves to fill in the printer from what the bridge reports instead of typing an instance name from memory.
  3. If no bridge is running yet, install one inline from that same chooser.

Printing labels to a network printer​

The Labels page can send to a CUPS printer too, not only a Bluetooth one.

  • Give a network printer a type (inkjet or laser, or thermal) and its widest media, and the label size options narrow to what that printer can actually run, so you never pick a 4 × 6 for a 2 inch roll.
  • Set type is the prompt shown on a printer with no type set.
  • via edge bridge is how a bridged label printer shows in the printer menu rather than "Network", and it is never offered a sheet size like US Letter it cannot feed.
  • Test on a bridged printer confirms the bridge answers and, on a thermal one, shows the roll and battery it reports.

Auto-print​

  1. On the Labels page, turn on Auto-print.
  2. Pick a network printer and a size.
  3. Choose to print when a sheet fills, every N labels, or each one as it is added.
What auto-print does in the background

Cobblr renders and sends in the background and records a re-printable batch, and a short cooldown keeps a burst of scans from firing a print each. While labels are on their way out, the Live box shows a running count on the printer icon, like a print queue in a taskbar.