Passthrough mode in Mobility Print

What is passthrough mode?

When the Mobility Print server and Mobility Print client both use the same PDL driver, this enables what we call “passthrough mode”. Passthrough refers to a mode of operation where the rendered PDL is printed as is (that is, passed through). Behind the scenes, the command line executable that does the printing will change from pc-spool-job.exe to pc-raw-spool-job.exe. When passthrough mode is enacted, it enables customers to use a native vendor driver in Mobility Print.

But how can it help me?

The potential benefits of using passthrough mode include:

• because the vendor driver native spool is received, printer defaults such as color detection, simplex vs duplex, page size, tray selection and advanced printing features like hole punching and stapling are more accurately adhered to
• when using a Find Me queue configuration with our Global postscript driver, there are some performance gains due to PDF conversion being skipped
• customers using Mobility Cloud Print can update the driver as the native spool file will be used whereas Print Deploy does not currently support Cloud Print queues

The requirements to successfully implement passthrough mode will vary depending on the OS.

Windows Mobility Print server > Windows Mobility client

If the destination printer uses:

• our PaperCut Global PostScript driver on both the client and the server, there is no conversion to PDF required and it will directly copy the spool file and print the job (passthrough occurs)
• our PaperCut Global PostScript driver on the client but not on the server, we will re-print the job (no passthrough occurs)
• any other native driver on the client side, it will directly copy the received spool file into the queue and print the job (passthrough occurs)
• XPS-based drivers, they will not work with passthrough mode.

macOS Mobility Print server > macOS Mobility client

Unfortunately, this is where things can get a little messy. Although passthrough works pretty consistently in Windows, it is less predictable in the realm of macOS. 

Theoretically, as long as the PPD (PostScript Printer Description) file used on your macOS client devices exactly matches the driver name and version of the driver on your macOS Mobility server, the server will receive the vendor driver native spool, and passthrough mode will be enacted.

However, it’s also important to know that because of many potential variables in the environment and also depending on the methods used to obtain your Mobility queues, passthrough on Macs is very much a case of ‘your mileage may vary’.

Windows Mobility Print server > macOS Mobility client

We fully support passthrough when the Mac client sends the PDL to a Windows server as long as the drivers match on both.  

Chromebook, iOS and Android clients

Passthrough mode is not supported by these platforms. This is because the print method for these devices will not generate a PDL file, but rather the job’s content is copied directly to the Mobility Print server as a PDF file for printing. 

Mobility Cloud Print Support

Passthrough mode is a feature that has no dependency or knowledge of the delivery method, so as long as the drivers on the server and client match, passthrough will still apply in a Cloud Print configuration (for Windows and macOS clients only, Chromebooks are not supported).