Version 10.1 brings us some great new features including advanced scriptting, custom printer fields, an update to the mac client and new reports.

The biggest news here is the Advanced scripting feature. Your script can do a whole host of things including checking details of the job and influencing what happens to it. Some examples:

• Displaying a pop-up message if a user forgets to select duplex on large jobs.
• Showing statistics on the environmental impact on large jobs via a fancy popup dialog.
• Prompting the user to confirm large jobs before printing.
• Automatically routing large jobs to more efficient high volume printers.

Plus those of you using a Copicode IP can now allow users to associate a new card with their PaperCut account or replace their existing card (I know some of you have been waiting for that)

You can find the newest download links on our product demo pages.

25 February 2010 – PaperCut MF 10.1 (Build 9802) New features:  

Enhancements:  

• CSV reports with date and time representations will now be automatically recognized by popular spreadsheet applications.
• Support for monitoring locally attached printers on Novell networks. Remote queues mapped via IPP are now ignored so only locally attached printers are detected.
• The “Microsoft Office Document Image Writer” virtual printer is ignored by default on secondary server installs.
• Improved documentation on how to set up PaperCut in a Novell cluster.
• Improved the PDF version of the user manual – smaller font, less paper! (But you weren’t going to print it, were you?)
• Improved error message when server-command is attempted to be run with non-elevated privileges under UAC on Windows 2008/Vista.

Fixes:  

• Fixed issue where the user client may in some situations consume excessive CPU if the –minimized option was turned on.
• Fixed a problem in Web Print where PDF files produced by OpenOffice may timeout with unknown error.
• Eliminated the “stale session” error that may have occurred when administrators attempted to log in using Microsoft Internet Explorer.

Printer compatibility improvements:  

Copier / Device Integration:  

The default behaviour then becomes:

• A user sends their job or jobs to the Find Me or any printer set up as a hold release queue.
• The user then authenticates at the Copicode-IP (usually with a swipe reader or proximity card)
• All print jobs are then released and the Copicode-IP display returns to the Logon Screen.

This mode is useful if you only require the print release function and ideally suited to swipe or prox release environments.

Got a Copicode IP and want to test it out? then select mode 6 when installing.

Any questions just ask.

If the client software is started with the --minimized option and the account selection popup is enabled, in some rare situations the client may consume high CPU until the window is focused in the foreground. This issue only affects the Windows operating system. A patch is avaliable if required. The alternate solution is to temporarily remove the start --minimized option.

Web Print users may experience issues when printing PDF files generated in Open Office that have a Title added to the document properties. To work around this issue the author of the PDF can unselect Display document title under File -> Export PDF -> User Interface when creating the PDF document.

PaperCut on Debian Linux (netbase 4.39-4.40)

A change in the above Debian version update breaks networking in many applications. The PaperCut application server may fail to start and/or fail to accept connections (i.e. cannot access the web interface). There is contention over whether the change is a bug or the right thing to do. More information and a workaround (set net.ipv6.bindv6only=0) are available in this Debian bug report:

  http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=560238

The last Vote for a Feature Survey focused on Big Ticket items. This time they are evaluating the “smaller items” that can have a big impact – the small little things that can help make your life easier as an administrator/user.

The goal of this round of voting is to determine the type of small features that help out the most.

You can access the latest Vote for a Feature survey via: •Administration console -> About -> Product News.

PaperCut is also considering sponsoring a public mailing list enabling all users to share ideas and innovative print management practices with each other. If you are interested in this please enter your email into the space provided in the survey.

Version 10.0 of PaperCut is now available, just fitting into our target December-January period for new major versions. This release brings several new features including printer groups and some visual updates to the client tool. The printer groups feature allows printers to be tagged or grouped together for management or reporting purposes. The client tool has had a graphic and GUI effects makeover and now sits nicely with the “glassy” look found in modern operating systems.

The version 10 client tool running on Mac OS 10.6

The full list of changes can be found in the release notes for PaperCut ChargeBack, PaperCut NG and PaperCut MF.

This release is the start of many new features, major and minor, that will become a part of version 10 in the coming months and throughout the year.
Upgrading to version 10 now will entitle you to all current and upcoming features in the 10.x series.

A feature that is scheduled in the next few weeks but fell short of 10.0 is the new advanced scripting interface for print job routing, redirection and conditional client interaction. This feature is undergoing some final polish and testing, and once available will open the door to a wide range of possibilities.

Customers with upgrade assurance may upgrade to version 10.x at any time. For our other customers please see our upgrade policy to determine if you are eligible for a free upgrade. Any questions then get in touch.

Please note this release also contains a database upgrade and administrators should factor this into their upgrade plan.

Web Print resolves this complexity by allowing users to upload common document formats such as PDF and DOC via a simple web interface, printing the document on a user’s behalf. No client software or drivers are required. Users simply follow an easy three step process:

2. Choosing print options

Next the user selects print options. The administrator may also allow access to shared account charging features, equivalent to the options available to desktop users with the PaperCut client tool. 

Charging to a shared account

PaperCut MF 9.8 (Build 9413) has been released to fix some Mac and Linux bugs.

This is a bug fix release for PaperCut MF 9.8 for Mac and Linux only, and contains the following changes:  

Fixes: 

• More improvements to support for print servers running CUPS 1.4, such as Mac OS 10.6 and recent Linux distributions.

Download

PaperCut MF for Mac OS X (Universal) 9.8 (Build 9413)

PaperCut MF for Linux Servers (i686) 9.8 (Build 9413)

PaperCut MF for Linux Servers (x64) 9.8 (Build 9413)

Hamilton College and PaperCut

Learn how Hamilton College (a highly selective, top-ranked, private liberal arts college located in Clinton, New York) keep an eye on printing with PaperCut: http://www.hamilton.edu/spectator/012110/news/print.html

The change which will probably have the most effect  going forward is the implementation of ARIA mark-up which will improve compatibility with text-to-speech applications such as Jaws. Other minor enhancements have been made in respect of compatibility with Magic Screen Magnifier, Dragon NaturallySpeaking and Windows High Contast Mode. Greater detail can be found on the developer blog here.

I’ll cut to the chase.  We discovered another product called PaperCut that had been getting very positive reviews on a number of higher ed listservs to which I subscribe.  After a short scan of the market and getting a few members of my staff involved, we decided to give PaperCut a shot.  For what it does, the product’s pricing is spectacular, particularly for educational institutions.  For our 1,500 user licenses, we didn’t end up having to pay much more than we did for Equitrac support alone, so, from a financial standpoint, the decision was a no-brainer.  We moved to PaperCut over the summer of 2009 and have had very few problems, but have enjoyed a great number of the product’s features, including:

• A web-based console used for both administration and user access. Users can very easily get a list of every single one of their print jobs.
• Automatic refunding in the event of a failed print job with no need for IT to get involved.
• Multiple easy ways to add money to a student’s printing account. We haven’t yet implemented what PaperCut calls “TopUp” cards, but we plan to do so.
• No problems working with Windows, OS X 10.4, 10.5 or 10.6. Lack of OS X 10.5 and 10.6 support is what drove us away from the older version of Equitrac.
• Automatic creation of user printing accounts through integration with Active Directory. Under Equitrac, getting new printing accounts created was a true hassle.
• Excellent, intuitive reporting tools, including an “environmental impact” report for each user that provides them with information about how their printing affects the environment.
• A very regular release cycle. Last year alone, there were close to fifteen releases, all of which added features and corrected issues.
• Meager system requirements for the server component – 1GB RAM; Windows, Mac OS X, Linux OS support; and less than 1GB of disk space. We run ours on a VMware-based virtual machine.
• Easy, easy administration.

Read the full article.