Printing Outlook attachments using the associated application

Standard Process

Kappris always prints to the final destination printer using XPS files.

By default, Outlook attachments are printed by converting them to XPS using routines supplied as part of the product. This includes just about all Microsoft Office files, PDF, images and a handful of other file types.

If Kappris sees that it does not know how to print a particular file it then asks Windows if it knows how to print the file. Specifically, it asks Windows if it knows an application that can print the file and send the printout to a particular printer. If Windows says it can do this, Kappris then asks Windows to print the file to the Kappris XPS printer, thus achieving XPS conversion and creating the XPS file that Kappris needs. Windows does this by asking the application associated with the file type to print to Kappris XPS.

This second technique (printing via Windows file association) has the following down-sides:

• Kappris has less control of the process because it is up to Windows to launch the relevant application when ready to do so;
• The associated application usually pops up on screen in order to print each file;
• The associated application may well display dialogs or errors that Kappris cannot control or trap;
• Kappris has to monitor printing closely to grab the XPS reliably when it appears, which could be significantly later than when Kappris first asked Windows to print it;
• Kappris then has to slot that particular printout back into the sequence of printout going to the destination printer;

The one advantage is that printing to Kappris XPS is now being done by an application specifically designed to do the job, eg Adobe Reader printing PDF files.

Therefore Kappris will always try to convert to XPS itself, rather than asking Windows to launch the associated application to do it.

File-type Overrides

Sometimes a file simply will not convert properly using the default methods. If Kappris can detect this at point of conversion, it can switch processing to use Windows. There are many circumstances under which Kappris would choose to do this.

However, it is possible for conversion to be successful but for Kappris to fail to print the final XPS. When this occurs consistently it is often a good idea to tell Kappris NOT to undertake the conversion itself but to leave the associated application to do it by printing to the Kappris XPS printer.

Kappris version 2.0.5+ supports overrides to force Kappris to launch the associated application via Windows, rather than attempting the conversion itself.

The relevant entry is in C:\{PF86}\Kutana\Kappris\config.ini

[Overrides]
PrintableUsingDriver=pdf;docx;xlsx

Adding (or modifying) a section such as this in config.ini allows the user to determine types of file (extensions) that must be printed using the associated application. The XPS resulting from this overridden technique may well print "better."

How do I know that it will print better

The simplest way to assess whether printout will be better is to open the attachment from the relevant email and then print it via the Kappris XPS printer. If the result is better then it is probably worth turning on the override for this particular file extension.