FactoryTalk View Print display function

Good morning all,

I am having an issue with the Print2PDF function on a PanelView Plus. I have setup the Print2PDF output to store the display on a USB storage device when it is plugged in and this works fine. The problem comes up when I do not have a USB device inserted into the HMI. When there is no USB device inserted and the print display button is pressed the HMI creates a folder called "USB Storage" and puts the image in that folder. Now when a USB device is inserted it sees that there is already a folder called "USB Storage" and then defaults to something like "USB Storage1". When this happens it appears to the end user that the print display button does not work because the HMI will keep moving the image into the local storage and not onto the USB.

Is there a way to prevent the Print2PDF function from creating a folder if it doesn't exist? Or is there a way to make the print display invisible until the HMI can see that a USB device is plugged in?

Thanks.

http://www.plctalk.net/qanda/showthread.php?t=105099

An idea from the above thread.
"it wrote the files to an SD card left in the panel. I then made a USB drive with an autorun.bat batch file that would automatically copy the files to the drive whenever it was plugged in."

This might help you out.
Regards,

I had thought of doing something like that, but the use case for this is usually when a customer is having problems and they need to send screen shots so I can see what is going on. It would be best if they could insert any flash drive without the need for having a batch file on it first.

I was also wondering if maybe there is a way to set up the main directory to be read only so that the Print2PDF function would not be able to create a folder and write to it if it doesn't already exist. I was unable to find any kind of settings for this though.

I may just have to add a pop up that warns the user that they could mess things up if they don't have a USB drive plugged in.