Port Monitors and PaperCut

Does it matter what type of port I use for PaperCut in Windows?

If you are using the Hardware Check Validation feature for a printer in PaperCut then you must use the PaperCut TCP/IP Port on that printer, otherwise you are free to use any Windows Port.

When setting up a printer on Windows there can be a variety of ports (and Port Monitors) to choose from, such as LPT*, COM*, FILE (all handled by the Windows Local Port Monitor), tcp port (using the Standard TCP/IP port monitor), WSD port (using the WSD (Web Services for Devices) port monitor), and a variety of Printer Manufacturers’ Port Monitors etc…

PaperCut will work with any of these ports because it currently interfaces with the print jobs at the print spooler queue layer. PaperCut basically pauses the print job as soon as it detects it in the queue and then analyzes it and then unpauses the job again.

A port monitor is used to actually communicate with the printer and send the print job data to the printer, and we don’t intefere with the job at that point unless we are using SNMP Hardware Check Validation.

There are also some ports which don’t really makes sense for us to monitor and so we ignore them so you don’t get printers and print-jobs for ones which you are not interested in e.g. pdf printers or remote desktop ports.