This post will help you to understand how we can dynamically change the default printer from a FM DB using apple scripts.

Step 1:

Create four global fields in queries table.

Step 2:

Get the default printer in the system and assign it to a field Name “G_Default_Printer” using a “Perform AppleScript” command as

set cap to (do shell script “lpstat -d”)

tell application “FileMaker Pro Advanced”

set cell “G_Default_Printer” of table “Admin” to cap

end tell

Step 3:

Get the list of printers IP address in the system and assign it to a field Name “G_Printer_IP” using a “Perform AppleScript” command as

set cap to (do shell script “lpstat -v”)

tell application “FileMaker Pro Advanced”

set cell “G_Printer_IP” of table “Admin” to cap

end tell

Step 4:

Get the list of printers in the system and assign it to a field Name “G_Printer_Name” using a “Perform AppleScript” command as

set cap to (do shell script “lpstat -p | awk ‘{print $2}’ ” )

tell application “FileMaker Pro Advanced”

set cell “G_Printer_Name” of table “Admin” to cap

end tell

Step 5:

Extract the default printer name from the “G_Default_Printer” and assign it to variable “Def_Printer” using script line as

“Trim ( Right ( Admin::G_Default_Printer;Length ( Admin::G_Default_Printer )- Position ( Admin::G_Default_Printer;”:”;1;1 ) ) )“

Step 6:

Assign printer IP address to a variable as “Printer IP”

Step 7:

Extract that specific printer name from its IP address using the list of printers IP address which is mapped with the variable “Printer IP”.

Step 8:

Assign the extracted printer to the default printer of the system using “Perform AppleScript“

“do shell script \”lpoptions -d ” & $Printer &”\””

Step 9:

Now Print the document.

Step 10:

Reset back the default printer from the Variable “Def_Printer” using “Perform AppleScript“

“do shell script \”lpoptions -d ” & $Def_Print &”\””

Hope you understand the solution above. If you are still need any help to implement this into your own solutions. Please, contact us. FMDBSolutions is a team of well-qualified experts that have a lot of experience with the many versions of FileMaker Pro and the FileMaker Go app too.

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