CloudPrint and Printer Web Connection
CloudPrint may not be something tackle-able by Nextcloud as it’s not in the printer business. But Printer Web connection is part of the business that Nextcloud customers use.
The way I see it Printers with WiFi have two capabilties:
- Print a file from a browser or program to a printer that is on the other side of the planet. AKA CloudPrint
- Printers can scan and send to a Cloudstorage. This can be helpful for many large multi-site enterprises or even just larger businesses that have their storage centralized. AKA Printer Web Connection.
Did you know some printers can connect to ActiveDirectory or LDAP so one can “sign-in” to the printer and then scan a doc and it get’s outputted to a storage location, then sign out. It’s simple.
Business customers that already use Nextcloud and that utilize printers heavily, specifically the capability to put a paper in a printer scan it an it get sent as a PDF file to a cloud storage would would appreciate this. I’m not a software developer, so I don’t know how it works now. Look at the softwares on this list as an example
https://www.brother-usa.com/brother-web-connect
Google Drive, Box, Dropbox, etc…
Let’s get Nextcloud on HERE!
So the question is: Does Brother develop and maintain a software for their printers to connect to cloud storages, or do the cloud storage companies develop and maintain the software and ship them to Brother to install on their printers?
As digital as the world is, printers/scanners/copiers/faxers are still a giant industry. Is there a way to get an app installed on Nextcloud to allow a printer to connect to it ? Some sort of CUPS service? An Instance wide capability. Not like a per user/group capability.
Right now in my home environment I have my Brother printer setup to scan and send to my /Documents/BrotherScans folder on my PC, which that whole directory is linked to my Nextcloud. So it gets to my Nextcloud instance anyways, but I need my desktop client on my PC to act as the middle man sync-er. If it could go straight to the nextcloud server, that’d be great. Again, the printers may need some sort of vendor provided method of doing that file transfer method. WebDav web connect on a printer? whaaat!?