Qprint: library defined printouts about a question

The Qprint function is accessible from the bottom of the Actions menu list. By dropping down this list and selecting a print format you can print information about the question whose question number is currently showing in the Question action bar. Qprint always opens in a separate sub window and so can be used at any time, even when you are in the middle of using another RefTracker screen.

In the screen print above there are print formats for printing Answers from the KB for giving to clients, a delivery label so that items can be posted in relation to questions containing street address contact information, a note to the client during the course of responding to the client in the form of a letter, a pickup slip so an item can be picked up from a library location, a question acceptance receipt for those submitting questions to staff in the library, the Response in the form of a letter, and a staff worksheet allowing information about the question to be taken away from the computer e.g. to a staff area. In your library you may have entirely different prints available! Your System Administrator will have provided print formats suitable for your library based on templates of standard text into which the specific values for the current question are inserted (click here for instructions about creating and editing Qprint templates). The templates can even include library logo’s, or can be printed on letterhead paper.

Using the “Qprint application” setting in the Answering tab of your My preferences screen, you can choose the application that will be used by Qprint to perform the print. Currently the two available applications are “Browser” and “MSWord”, so the following sections describe how to use Qprint with each of these options. You can change the application that you use by going to your My preferences screen, Answering preferences tab, at any time, however you will probably come to prefer one method over the other.

The “Browser” option provides a simple one step method of obtaining the print, however the print is created by your browser and will have the same browser headers and footers that are automatically inserted into your browser prints – usually at least the URL of the page being printed. 

However some libraries prefer higher quality prints (without the browser headers and footers), and the MS Word setting provides that option, as well as the option to amend the output before printing and to save the output to a file, should that be appropriate. Note that with an appropriate Qprint template design the MSWord option, and its ability to save the output to a file, can provide a way of creating forms to send to the client with their contact information, or information about their question, already inserted!

To use Qprint with either application option, simply drop down the Qprint list and click on the template that you want to use. The system inserts the current values for the current question, into the template layout and presents it so it can be printed.

As the full text in all fields included in the Staff worksheet template, is included in the Qprint, the Staff worksheet can be used as a permanent printed record of the question and answer, if you need one.  If too much text is appearing in relation to a field use the Word for windows Qprint output option as that allows you to edit the output provided by RefTracker before printing it.

The following sections describe what happens for each of the Qprint application options using the Staff worksheet template as the example.

Using Qprint with your Qprint application set to “Browser”

When your Qprint application is set to “Browser”, the output of the template you chose is displayed in a web browser window using your default web browser. A standard printer selection box is also displayed.

You can view what is about to be printed in the browser window, but you cannot change it. In the printer selection box you can choose which printer the print will go to, how many copies etc, and you have the opportunity to insert the right paper in the printer, before you click on Print and the printout is sent to the selected printer. When you submit your print request the print window and the browser window will be automatically closed and you will be back at your RefTracker screen. 

Note that the templates are designed not to print the value or the label for any fields that do not have a value for this question, so, it is possible that for example, if you tried to print an Address label for a question that had no street address information recorded for it, the generated Address label may have little information on it. You cannot change the output when using the “Browser” application for Qprint.

Information printed from a web browser usually has standard header and footer information added to it, as defined by the Header and Footer lines in your browser File/Page setup. The headers and footers can be removed using the following procedure, but the settings are then difficult to restore, so if you want quality print output without these headers and footers, the best solution is to use the MS Word application for your Qprints (see the next section). 

To remove headers and footers from your browser: The only way to stop the standard header and footer information from being added to HTML prints is to go your browser’s File Page setup, and set both the Header and Footer lines to be blank. Once you have done this ALL prints that you do from your web browser will have no headers and footers. To return to factory settings for headers and footers you need to go the File/Page setup and (for IE) enter the following:

Header: &w &b Page &p of &P

Footer: &u &b &d

Using Qprint with your Qprint application set to MS Word

Some libraries need quality printed output from Qprint, or the ability to amend the output before printing (such as to remove long email trails showing in the Question or answer text), or the ability to save the output to a file. The MS Word Qprint application setting provides this flexibility but at the cost of a few more steps.

When your Qprint application is set to “MS Word”, you will first be asked to open the output file in MS Word.

When you click on Open you are presented with the output in MS Word.

At this point you can edit it if necessary, then print it by clicking on the MS Word print button. A normal Microsoft print box will display so you can choose the printer and the number of copies. You may even want to use letter head paper to print it on.You can then save the output to a file, if appropriate, using the normal MS Word file saving functions, and finally you need to close the MS Word window.

Exercise

Print your selected Qprint – you’re my preferences Qprint application setting will control which of the procedures described above will be presented to you. You might like to try change you’re my preferences setting and trying out the other method.

Need your Qprint output as a .pdf?

If you need your Qprint output as a pdf just use your browser or Word print output options to create the pdf.  Here’s how you do it for the Edge browser.  It is similar for other browsers and for Word for Windows.

A new question to carry on with this training!

The question we have been working with is now closed (i.e. completed), and the remaining Question action functions that we need to investigate only operate on open questions, so we need to create a new question to use with them.

So please refer back to the earlier part of this manual on using the New screen, if need be, and create a new question. It doesn’t matter which request form you use, but the simplest Basic request form will do in this instance. When you are asked how to allocate the question, choose I’ll respond now, which will present you with the Answer screen.

To learn about the additional Question action functions we are now going to contrive some situations.

So the first situation is that, having seen this question you decide that it really would be best for this question to be answered by another staff member (remember that you could have been picking it up from an email sent to you, or from the Open questions screen, in which case this scenario will be more realistic). You can reallocate a question at any time point in its progression to completion, for example, it might need to be finished today, and you have a meeting to go to. You can reallocate the question to a colleague with a note about its urgency, and they will receive an email that links them to all of the information about this question, as it is all accessible from RefTracker.

To reallocate this question to another staff member, simply click on Reallocate in the Question actions bar. (Just because the Answer screen is currently displayed, it does not mean you have to use it. Because RefTracker is a web based application, you can move off screens without using them, at any time.) 

Exercise

Enter the new question, and use I’ll respond now, so that the question becomes allocated to you and you are taken to the Answer screen. Click on Reallocate to bring up the Reallocate screen shown and move to the next section.