Managed ("Pull") Printing

The managed printers are provided by IT Services, who have overall responsibility for their support and maintenance. Information about the managed printing system may be found on the IT Services website:

http://www.gla.ac.uk/services/it/staffprinting/

Printer Locations

The managed printers work on a "pull" model: rather than sending a document directly to one particular device, the document is sent to central storage from where it can be retrieved at any printer you choose; should the printer you normally use be busy or broken, you can elect to use an alternative, which may be located on another floor or in a different building altogether. The easiest way to log-in to the printer to retrieve your document is by means of your university ID card (either a staff or student card), so remember to take this with you.

The closest printers in the Kelvin Building are in rooms 484, 331 and 320. The printers in 484 and 331 are both colour devices and will print duplex up to A3 size; the printer in 320 is black-and-white only. At present, the colour registration on the printer in 484 is not brilliant: it is adequate for most uses, but if you are printing high-quality colour documents, you may prefer to use the printer in 331.

Charging

Staff are not charged directly for printing. At present, it is recommended that PhD students who also have a staff account and ID card use this for printing at present. PhD students who do not have a staff account can use their student account to print, for which there should be no charge; if prompts regarding charges or credit are received, please contact PPE IT support.

Undergraduate students are charged for printing. Details of costs, and information about adding credit to student printing accounts (e.g. for summer students who might be expected to do an unusual amount of printing) may be found here:

https://www.gla.ac.uk/media/media_363742_en.pdf

Installing the Managed Printers

IT Services provides instructions for installing the managed printers on various operating systems:

• Microsoft Windows
• Mac OS X
• Linux

In addition, on PPE Linux systems, you can also print to the managed printers without installing them first by using the pullprint and pspullprint commands:

pullprint <GUID> <FILENAME_TO_PRINT>

pspullprint <GUID> <FILENAME_TO_PRINT> [a2ps ARGUMENTS]

These commands work best with postscript files, but will handle many other formats as well. The pullprint command sends the file directly to the printers, while pspullprint processes the file through a2ps before sending it to print. You may get better control if you process text files manually with a2ps first, and then pass the resulting postscript files to the pullprint command.

Additional Linux installation instructions

To use the printers on Linux, you will also need a couple of additional Samba packages. These should be installed by default on PPE PCs, but you may need to install them manually if you are using your own installation of Linux on a laptop. For CentOS and other RHEL derivatives:

sudo yum install samba-common samba-client

For Ubuntu:

sudo apt install samba smbclient

When installing the printer driver, you may be presented with a list of printers to choose from. If so, you should select PullPrint, found in the All Printers list. (You should not select a specific device, such as those with names beginning COSE.)

Using the Managed Printers

To print from a managed printer:

1. Make sure you have your staff or student card with you!
2. If the printer is in power saving mode when you arrive (i.e. if the screen is dark), push the illuminated green button at the top right.
3. Log in by tapping your card against the card reader on the left-hand side.
4. You should see a list of your print jobs. Select the one you want to print and press Print to start (bottom left), or press Print All to print all of your documents.

Detailed instructions for particular printer models can be found here:

https://www.gla.ac.uk/myglasgow/it/staffprinting/

Web Interface

A web interface is provided which lets you send jobs directly to the managed printers without the need to install the driver first. You can access this using your GUID:

http://laptopprint.gla.ac.uk/WebApp/Login

Once you have logged in, you can upload the file you wish to print, at which point it will be retrievable from any managed printer.