Printing solutions

[kingoranks]

Hi All,

 

We are looking for a good printing solution to reduce cost and looking at paper cut and equitrac . Any info will be appreciated.

[cromertech]

I'm currently looking at ObjectPrint from here Fitosoft – Print Management Software

 

Looks promising and I'm only using the free edition at the mo

[mdench]

We have papercut here actually in the middle of migrating our 2008r2 box to 2012. Finance department likes it as we are able to keep tracking of departmental staff printing costs. We have also brought in following me printing on all our main copiers around our site so that nothing is printed until you tell the copier to print it. Do you have any biometric solution in place?

[kingoranks]

Thanks Mdench,

 

We are looking at incorporating follow me print into it but with pin number. I like to know more about paper cut, did you get mg or mf. How did you purchase the software? we are looking at a company called annodata. We are getting new machines and solutions to reduce waste and cost

[mdench]

We have MF here. We have recently just got new ricoh machines which are really nice most of them are Ricoh Aficio MP C4502 with optional stapler units. and then we have two slightly large machines for our main office and staffroom. I think ours was all done through Ricoh when we leased our copiers. But all our support etc for PaperCut is done via a company called ITS LTD So if we get a new copier delivered to site ricoh come out and set it up and then ITS come out and link it our biometrics and PaperCut system.

[nadeem]

We use Equitrac with mifare card authentication (together with Everyone Print to allow print from users devices as well). We have mostly Ricoh MFD's. Ricoh printers and now are moving towards Sharp MFDs (as our Ricoh reseller got taken over by Sharp!!!)

 

You're more than welcome to come and see our setup in action

[MicrodigitUK]

Thanks Mdench,

 

We are looking at incorporating follow me print into it but with pin number. I like to know more about paper cut, did you get mg or mf. How did you purchase the software? we are looking at a company called annodata. We are getting new machines and solutions to reduce waste and cost

 

If you incorporate copiers you will need Papercut MF. MF comes with copier support and as such must be purchased through the people you purchase copier contract from. If you are looking at Annodata be aware they are only just getting into the Papercut market. Reason being they mainly push Cannon copiers that are yet to support Papercut embedded. I would suggest you get competitive pricing from http://www.itecgroup.co.uk that I know have been working with schools and Papercut for a long time and have tech support that know Papercut inside out.

[plexer]

If you incorporate copiers you will need Papercut MF. MF comes with copier support and as such must be purchased through the people you purchase copier contract from.

 

Not exactly true tbh we had pcounter km embedded on our colour copier and it wasn't purchased from Konica who we leased the machine through.

 

Ben

[MicrodigitUK]

I mean the embedded software support on the device. I know some copier suppliers get funny if you start flashing the embedded software with something they don't support. You purchase Papercut MF via a partner that can give you the hardware support. Compared to Papercut NG that doesn't require that extra hardware support but because of that lacks copier integration.

[Jasbo]

We use Equitrac, but I hope we move to paper cut, from testing with paper cut it does everything we need but costs a lot less. Equitrac is a bit of a beast, we run it over 2 separate servers, it's over kill for a average school in my opinion.

[hadar]

Some ideas sound very good

[Tallwood_6]

Ricoh MFDs and equitac here and it works well.

[Edu-IT]

Ricoh with PaperCut here, seems to be working well.

[Jehanzeb]

We use educating people route, haven't implemented any restriction, just awareness on a constant basis along with report of ink usage to the year group and also to principal. We have copiers with passwords on but hey, everyone knows them - we didn't tell, people talk about it, give and take favours. You can't stop that. What happens when ink finishes, you replace it. Will you charge your staff for print credits? Does it affect the ink usage. We saved 1000s of pounds through educating them but yes it wouldn't work everywhere.

 

Regards

 

J.

[PotNoodleTech]

Equitrac is a bit over complicated and not designed to work in a school particularly well (the way it handles departments/users/billing codes).

 

I'm due a refesh in 2017 and will be looking to move from Equitrac to something else.

[robyholmes]

Papercut MF here and really like it. You really need MF if you going to be using copiers as release stations. Look at other options but none held up to Papercut.

[CAWJames]

We have 10 Ricoh copier on the normal version of PaperCut, but our release stations are RaspberryPi's and touchscreen units next to the copiers. Ok it doesn't track the photocopying, but it has saved us a truckload in just having the release stations. We have the normal 500 user licence for edu and 9 release station licences(you get one with the original licence, so 10). We also have it across 4 geographic sites, from the one central server(and one print server at each site). Love the name and shame reports, for high usage, people really think twice before they print

[PotNoodleTech]

We have 10 Ricoh copier on the normal version of PaperCut, but our release stations are RaspberryPi's and touchscreen units next to the copiers. Ok it doesn't track the photocopying, but it has saved us a truckload in just having the release stations. We have the normal 500 user licence for edu and 9 release station licences(you get one with the original licence, so 10). We also have it across 4 geographic sites, from the one central server(and one print server at each site). Love the name and shame reports, for high usage, people really think twice before they print

 

Interesting! Rasb Pi release stations sound cool! Were they supplied buy Ricoh or did you make them yourself?

[CAWJames]

We made them ourselves, and I used the linux release station included with PaperCut on a kiosked Raspbian. Although I have since found out that they have an image for this already, you just need to request it from support.

 

[Michael]

Papercut MF are easily the market leaders - works with Active Directory and working with practically every photocopier manufacturer. There are multiple ways users can authenticate to retrieve jobs - including AD credentials, a PIN or a physical card/pass or indeed a combination. And as others have stated, a 'Follow Me' setup is the way to go, with pre-configured drivers in Black and White and Colour modes to control costs.

 

'Follow Me' for those that don't know - lets say you have two or more photocopiers. 'Follow Me' means end users print as normal, but their job is held in a virtual queue and can be retrieved from the nearest device or more crucially, the next working device if one is offline/being repaired.

 

Other advantages of Papercut MF is the responsibility can be delegated to a member of Staff, who can authenticate using their AD credentials on an internally hosted webpage within your local network to manage credit balances. There's also no configuration on the driver required (by the end user) and it's impossible to bypass unlike some other solutions. It's also good for privacy, so you only see your jobs and not everyone else's; and it's also good for scheduled reporting - so in summary, other than the cost, there's no reason not to go with it

[asc]

Ricoh with Papercut here. Installed and service contract with ITEC.