control printing

[adamyoung]

anyone got any system to issue print credits/control printing, we have at ream of wasted printouts from our sixth form alone each day!

 

We have Windows 2003 server running the printer queues

[ChrisH]

Print manager and Pcounter seem to be the most popular ones. Each solution costs in the region of about £500 I think but that would depend how many servers etc.

[Ric_]

Check out Print Manager Plus Academic - per server licensing and very simple to configure and use

[kingswood]

Pcounter here- and I really don't like it...no I don't.

 

I'd prefer a built-in Windows 2003 print quota tool a la Mac OS X Server...

 

Paul

[Geoff]

Linux box running cups can do this for free.

 

http://www.cups.org/

[sahmeepee]

Pcounter is OK. The interface is a bit naff, but it works. You can do quite a lot with it, such as: stopping people from printing out web pages, stopping them printing sets of 30 (try walking to the photocopier to print your class sets instead!), setting different costs based on colour and paper size etc.

 

The reporting is slow and a bit clunky but it sort of does the job.

[ConTheITGuy]

Linux box running cups can do this for free.

 

http://www.cups.org/

 

I seem to recall reading somewhere that with cups, you could set it up so the teacher could choose which jobs to release from their machine - do you know where I begin to look at this Geoff? (or anyone )

 

Cheers,

 

Andy.

[Geoff]

Its part of PyKota. which is what you need to do the more advanced quota management with cups.

 

http://freshmeat.net/redir/pykota/37074/url_homepage/action_Presentation

 

Also check out the features of cups web interface. You might be able to do what you want just using that.

 

http://www.cups.org/

[RobC]

And to really tax your brains (and I think I've asked this before but can't remember the answer...), is there any way of doing this when the printers do not run through a print server, but instead are hooked directly to the network?

[Geoff]

You have to run them through a print server to have quota control. You can still run network printers through cups using LPR though.

[RobC]

Hmm, I wonder what Fujitsu would say if I sneaked a Linux box onto the network & started screwing around with the printers...

[Geoff]

5p on:

 

"buh...?"

[Sirbendy]

Yes, we use Print manager Plus...the kids hate it..

[steve]

Depends what type of printers you have.

 

I tried Pcounter last year and found it very unreliable when calculating the number of pages printed from certain applications. e.g Corel Draw prints would sometimes be classed as 500 sheets.

 

What make of printers do you find works with Pcounter / Print Manager Plus? We have Epsons at the min, but looking to change aspap.

[secman]

We have a system called PaperCut Quota running on the W2K Server Print Server. website is http://www.Papercut.biz

You can easily monitor printing across the network and there is a client for the herberts to check their accounts. We don't currently limit printing but monitor the "higher level users." This monitors staff as well!!!

[ICTNUT]

We use Print Manager Plus, the kids don't really see it in action as most of them rarely hit the limits imposed however the teachers hate it with a vengance

[Michael]

I also use Print Manager Plus 5.5. I believe there's a version 6 now. It works perfectly on Windows 2000/2003 Server. It integrates nicely with Active Directory, so you can apply credit on group or user basis to quickly deploy limitations to users. Users can view their credit from an icon in the Taskbar or I believe you can setup a web database.

 

Print Manager Plus also allows you to view pie charts/bar graphs so it illustrates clearly which users are hammering your printers the most! The only downside with Print Manager Plus, is upgrading from one build to the next was incompatible with the old database, forcing me to re-allocate credit to each group. A little annoyance, but I contacted the manufacturers and they confirmed it was a problem!

[Ric_]

@Michael: v6 seems a lot better and there is even a button in the GUI that checks for [and installs] the minor revisions.

[webman]

Here's an interesting question.. does anyone know of any software or script (if it's even possible) whereby the owner username of each print job is printed in small point size at the foot of every page? At a guess it would have to sit at Spool or Driver level.

[Ric_]

@webman: That is the Holy Grail of school network managers. I wish that I was able to help.

[Michael]

@Ric_ - Version 5.5 also has this feature by going to File > e-update, however this involved downloading the whole application again (20MB +). I don't really call this patching, but more upgrading. Version 6 probably has a few enhancements over 5.5, but I'm happy with the service it provides. Maybe I'll upgrade to Version 7 whenever that comes out

 

@webman - I remember visiting a photocopier company and asked the same question about print jobs so we could identify who the worked belonged to, even if it was scattered all over the floor. After days waiting for a response the engineers came back with a response of opening up Word, going to View > Header and Footer. I was rolling my eyes to say the least! I'd also like to know if there's a proper solution or product which could do this!

[webman]

@Ric_, Michael: Oh well, until we find a solution we shall keep on dreaming eh

[ChrisH]

The only time I have seen this is for IE where you can use a reg tweak to put a users name on the bottom of the page. Further investigation however found no such similar settings in office or anything like that.

[penguinpowered]

Papercut here. Excellent piece of software - simple, reliable and a breeze to maintain. The support is excellent too, though the company is based in Oz so the time difference can be 'interesting' to get used to. HIGHLY recommended!

[MkII]

Yeah - i've done it on a footer but it's not forced - the kids can remove it - but it catches most so you can see who's littering!