What is job chaining?
Job chaining is when the printer continues to print successive jobs with no gaps and no pauses for between-job-servicing.
How do jobs qualify for job chaining?
To qualify for job chaining jobs must be the same width and the same resolution.
In order to get jobs of varying width to chain, you can use the Media size that says "Full printer width". This media size will resize PDFs to be whatever the height of the original PDF is and change the width to the full width of the printer. They will then become eligible for chaining.
Limits on job chaining.
Job chaining is dependent on getting data into the buffer in time for the printer to decide to chain the next job. So it is dependent on job size.
What stops chaining of smaller jobs?
The printer needs to see pages transfered into the printer buffer and queued up in order to decide to chain. If there are not pages queued up then the chain breaks. Possibly faster hardware or a different software configuration could help.
Can I still print jobs that don't chain?
Yes. What will happen is that the printer will pause and do it's between-job-servicing before continuing with the next job.
If you are having trouble chaining
If your run lengths are 500 or more then you probably won't encounter job chaining problems. If you are doing short runs and are having trouble with job chains breaking, make sure to enable Stream On Start. This causes the RIP to start the printer as soon as possible, rather than delaying start to build up a buffer of ripped jobs. With smaller jobs, the time taken to build up several pages in the RIP buffer can cause the job chain to break because the printer sees not enough pages transfered to the printer in time for the chain.
To enable this:
Make sure the Navigator Server is not running.
In %AppData%\Roaming\Xitron\Duraflex\DuraflexSpooler.ini change StreamOnStart to 1.
(If that line does not exist, then add it. StreamOnStart=0 turns it off. StreamOnStart=1 turns it on.
StreamOnStart=1 is what we want if we are trying to keep job chaining going for smaller jobs.)
Save and exit.
Read more about StreamOnStart.
How can I chain many single page jobs?
Use case: I want to make one hundred single page proofs of my next one hundred jobs and send them out to users for approval. I don't want to have between-job-servicing a hundred times!
The solution is to temporarily stop the printer from printing so the buffer can fill up with these small jobs.
Launch the Navigator Server.
Under the Server Setup menu select Administrator Login...
Leave the password blank and click OK.
Under the Server Setup menu, select Manage Devices.
Select the printer, then click Advanced.
Uncheck the Auto-start on IDLE option. (Read all about it!)
Click OK, then click Apply in the settings window.
In the DFE select the jobs you wish to chain and release them. They will now all spool up without printing. Once they are all spooled continue to the next step.
Follow the steps above to get to the Advanced option window and check the Auto-start on IDLE option.
Click OK, then click Apply in the settings window. Queued jobs will start to print automatically.
You might wonder how many single page jobs you can buffer up like this.
Take color #10 envelopes for an example. 1600x954. They consume about 40mb of buffer space each. A duraflex system has a 6gb buffer. So 150 envelopes. With the scheme outline just above you could buffer 150 single page jobs, and then chain them all once you release them by checking Auto start on IDLE.
The same calculation only it's CMYK letter size pages instead: 75 pages.
The same calculation only it's monochrome #10 envelopes: 600 pages.