There's likely more steps to this however one way I've seen it done is via a checkmark UDF on the SO indicating "ready to ship/send to processing". From there you can print, export, etc

I have seen the UDF for ready to ship used also

We use the open sales order report to gauge progress by our employees.  We added a UDF called notes on the first tab of the SO so they could write a note how come this SO is not processed and closed.  They have to run it every Monday, export it to excel and email it to their supervisor that includes the notes.  At a glance we can see when the SO was opened and the reason it has not been closed.  Maybe this will help.  This keeps them aware so they don't forget anything.