Force a printer to be black and white

[Arcath]

One of my schools is having a problem with people over using the big laser printers to print off all manner of over colourful nasty from the class rooms.

 

Is there a way to force the printer to print in black and white? prehaps with a vbs script?

 

all the printers are network so its all script based

Edited September 23, 2009 by Arcath
Extra Info

[gibbo_ap]

i have just installed print audit 6 which gives you the ability to set rules such as this.... that is the only one i have found at present tho. but i have only had a 10 min mess yday.

 

it is supposed to be all singing all dancing. but this is a costly way of doing things.

[bladedanny]

First off check to see if there is a mono print driver for that model, if not, on the server or machine where the printer is shared go to the printers properties and go to printing defults and see if there is an option in there to set to mono.

 

Hope this helps,

 

Dan

[Arcath]

i have just installed print audit 6 which gives you the ability to set rules such as this.... that is the only one i have found at present tho. but i have only had a 10 min mess yday.

 

it is supposed to be all singing all dancing. but this is a costly way of doing things.

 

Yeah saving money is why they want to do this they wont go for a costly solution.

 

First off check to see if there is a mono print driver for that model, if not, on the server or machine where the printer is shared go to the printers properties and go to printing defults and see if there is an option in there to set to mono.

 

Hope this helps,

 

Dan

 

Id thought about that, if you change it on the server dont you only change it for the server?

[bladedanny]

If you change it under print settings then yes, but if you use print defaults then it should (he says) be the same on the clients.

[glennda]

I have done it before, by using a Universal driver (if there is one available), under properties\device settings\ device type (at the bottom) change from auto detect to mono. that was with an HP printer, have not tried it with another one!

 

Toby

[Brpilot99]

Hiyah ... this was my solution

 

Went to a workstation and made sure it was set to print colour to that printer .... took a registry snapshot

Changed the settings to print black and white ... took another snapshot ....

 

From this I found out what key had changed ... so exported that key and called it blackandwhite.reg

 

Made a batch file c:\windows\regedit.exe /s \\yourserver\batchfiles\blackandwhite.reg and called it bw.bat

 

Ran the batch file using group policies under programs to run on user logon ...

 

You can have a set colour.bat for staff and set Blackandwhite.bat for students if you wish

 

Works a treat for me !!!

 

Cheers

 

Brian

 

Silicon Keyboards with lower case letters

[Arcath]

Had a look through registry couldnt find the printers i needed, all the printers are added on logon to the machine, is there some way to add it into my vbs script that does that?

 

i found this: Win32_PrinterConfiguration Class (Windows)

but im not that good at vbs so im not sure how to use this.

[mac_shinobi]

see if you can either get and install just a black and white driver from a similiar black and white printing device and if not that then if its setup on a print server then under printing defaults ( under advanced tab ) and in printing preferences set it to black and white there.

[Brpilot99]

Had a look through registry couldnt find the printers i needed, all the printers are added on logon to the machine

 

Thats ok .. if the printer shows up under printers and faxes after you have logged in then you can use the same method ....

 

I cant remember what program I used for the snapshot but I think it was regshot ....

 

You just have to make sure that the batch file runs after your script that installes the printers or it wont work.

 

Just a question why install the printers on logon? I used rundll printui.dll to install my printers to the workstations ... you do this once only ... it helped a lot with logon times ...

 

Or have I missed something

 

Cheers Brian

[Arcath]

well my printer script removes all the printers before it adds them, this school changes its mind so often about who gets what printers, and i was having a problem where connections lingered so even tho the script wanst giving them the printers any more they still got access to them.

 

Ive never had any problems with logon times here, its only a primary school with 40~50 machines and 2 servers (old one wasnt dead so its still on doing what it can) so network speeds are never really issue here.

[dhicks]

Is there a way to force the printer to print in black and white?

 

You could install the shared printer as a generic (black and white only) postscript printer on your server, then use GhostScript to redirect the generated postscript from that to the actual printer you want to use.

 

--

David Hicks

[soveryapt]

I've only had a cursory read over the posts thus far, so if someones already said this, sorry (but it's a quicky reply before I go home)..

 

I'm using Windows Server 2003 R2 at one school and I use GPOs to deploy the printers from the built in printer server. From this, I have the option to then make all printouts (using 3 HP2700n) Black and White if I so choose by setting up a default profile within the HP Settings. I can then add in colour profile settings as well and if people need to print to colour they can choose that, but this way default is to be all mono.

 

I guess you could probably do this is you were to add the printer to your own server (if not using 2003R2) and then share it from there (thus creating a single print cue) and setting the defaults to being Mono from that then again, if they want to they can select to print colour, but without using a mono print driver (as I noticed one person suggested) or expensive (but nice) software like PA6 - again as suggested - (I did place an order for it, had it authorised by the head and deputy head, went on holiday, and got a phone call from my supplier asking why the order had been cancelled by the head - but that's another rant) which will allow you to right rules for who can print in or even who can authorise the printing of colour ink, but knowing the cost of the software I can see why they probably wouldn't want to go for that.

 

I hope this pennies worth helps

Andy