Printing
Printing is a network service on Eos/Unity. There is no printer connected to individual workstations in the labs. Rather, every lab has at least one high-end laser printer that handles the printing requirements of all of the workstations. You can print to a near by lab from your laptop computer easily and effectively.
WolfCopy: How to Get Print Quota and Assistance with Printers
Once you have your computer account and are on campus, you need to go to a WolfCopy Center to purchase print quota so that you can print on the printers in the labs. Or, you can purchase quota online with a credit card at http://print.ncsu.edu. All Eos/Unity labs and workstations use the same print quota debit system.
Printing is $0.06/page, $0.25/page for color. The minimum quota purchase is $5.00 for about 83 pages. To purchase quota with cash or check, go to one of the following locations:
- Wolfcopy kiosk at D. H. Hill Library, at the Photocopy Services desk adjacent to the main lobby
(building #47, campus map/north), is open 8:00AM-4:30PM Monday-Friday for immediate additions to your WolfPrint quota account. - Administrative Services I (building #122, campus map/south), is open 8:00AM-5:00PM Monday-Friday for immediate additions to your WolfPrint quota account.
- Materials Management Warehouse, 3240 Ligon Road (building #161, campus map/south) is open 8:00 AM - 5:00 PM Monday - Friday.
WolfCopy maintains the public lab printers, including adding paper and toner. Contact WolfCopy or lab operators if you have problems, wolfcopy@ncsu.edu (515-2131) or help@ncsu.edu (515-HELP). The printers are complex and expensive pieces of equipment that users should not try to fix themselves.
WolfPrint
WolfPrint is a campus-wide printing system that was put in place by ITD in 2003. It permits you to perform the following routine tasks at http://print.ncsu.edu:
- buy quota online
- check your print quota.
- print to a file and send the file to a specific printer.
- check print queues, re-route and remove print jobs.
- report printing problems.
Print a File
Most of the time, to send a print job directly to the printer in the lab you are in, you simply select Print from the File pull-down menu of your application. The Print... option on your File menu provides additional print options to adjust default settings, change number of copies, range of pages, etc.
However, sometimes you need to route your file to another printer. To do this, use the Print a File tool from http://print.ncsu.edu, browse for and select the file, and choose the printer you want from the pull-down list. You can also print more than one copy by selecting Show Options to bring up Copies.
The file must be specifically formatted for printing, PostScript (.ps), Portable Document Format (PDF), or simply a plain text file (.txt). Whatever application you are in, you must first print to a file before using the Print a File tool to route to a Eos/Unity printer (see Printing to a File in this chapter).
Check Queues
Whether you print directly to your local lab printer from File -> Print or use the Print a File tool, you can check on the status of your print job with the Check Queues tool. Windows uses a different printing system from the three other platforms (Solaris, Linux, Mac), which is the reason you see two print queues listed for each printer.
With this tool, you can see what jobs are ahead of yours so you can estimate how long you have to wait. If there is a long wait, you can remove and/or re-route your job. You can only remove jobs that you own. Because you had to log in to http://print.ncsu.edu, the system knows who you are and will not let you remove anyone’s print jobs but your own.
The following shows a job sent to the Park Shops printer. The owner, mcdaniel, can select Cancel the Job in the lower left corner.
When the job is successfully canceled, WolfPrint will return a web page with the following message:
Quota Details
Quota Details is a check you are likely to run frequently. You have to have print quota in order to print, and you purchase it from WolfCopy Centers on campus. The Quota Details web page shows you your quota balance and the jobs you have printed. You can see from the Logs when and where you printed each job, how much it cost, and the number of pages.
The IOU feature is important in case you run out of quota at a time when WolfCopy Centers are not open for you to purchase more. You can get an IOU of $10 worth of printing (about 166 pages) through the following web page. Only one $10 IOU is permitted per user at a time.
When you request an IOU, $10 is immediately credited to your WolfPrint balance, and your account is flagged. At 8:00 a.m., two days from the time you requested the IOU, $10 is deducted from your WolfPrint account. While your account is flagged, you are not allowed to request additional IOUs. If you are over $10 in debt, you may not request an IOU. The flag disappears when you pay your outstanding balance at a WolfCopy location.
Report a Problem
If you have any difficulty with the WolfPrint tools and checks, you can report a problem through the following web page. However, first look at the Frequently Asked Questions at http://print.ncsu.edu/faq.php before you report a problem to make sure you have not missed something that will help you solve the problem on your own.
Printing to a File
Depending on the type of OS you are using there are a couple of ways to ensure that your file can be printed via http://print.ncsu.edu.
Linux
If you are using Linux you can print to file from within an application. These files will usually be saved a filename.ps. These ps files can be printed by the WolfPrint tool.
Mac OS X
If you are using Mac OS X and you choose the print command from within the application in most cases you can simply choose to “Save as PDF” (from the PDF button on OS X 10.4 "Tiger") and OS X will do the conversion for you. This will allow you to save the file as filename.pdf and thus print it using WolfPrint.
Windows XP
While Windows does not come with its own built in PDF distiller, there are applications available that will perform the process for you. The College of Engineering has made available Fine Print PDF Factory Pro. This application installs itself like a normal printer on your system. Then whenever you want to print from an application and have the print out be saved in PDF format, simply choose that printer from your list of available printers. You are then able to save the document and then print it out via WolfPrint.
