We recently tested a lot of screen capture software for the purpose of creating demos of PaperCut and our in house m3i solution. After a few weeks of trying the software options on the first page of Google search results we ended up purchasing Demo Builder. Below is our first attempt, so be nice!

The timing, colours and a few other bits ‘n’ bobs need to be worked on (must remember to turn off mouse clicks!) After creating one I think future videos may contain commentary rather than all the writing as I feel people go into more detail and offer little tips while speaking. It depends how bad our voices sound in the real world. I expect our next go (migrating from NG to MF) will be even more awesome.

If you do watch it I suggest going full screen and 720p - and grab a cuppa!

We don’t often post about new builds but the numbers 14716 have made everyone here at selectec HQ ecstatic.

We like to pester the developers with our demands and wishes for PaperCut and one of the little tweaks we have wanted for a while now finally crept out into a public build last night! Oh yes they have increased the default timeout of jobs in hold/release queues!
This could always be manually changed but the amount of emails we get from people wondering where their print jobs had gone was getting silly Also of interest in this build is support for a load of new Lexmark and Kyocera Mita machines.

Thank you PaperCut!

Full release notes below.

25 August 2011 – PaperCut MF 11.4 (Build 14716)

The experts over at Buyers Laboratory have announced that PaperCut MF V11.2 has been honoured with a Summer 2011 “Pick” award as “Outstanding Cost-Recovery Solution.” BLI’s prestigious “Pick” awards honour the top-performing solutions evaluated in BLI’s lab during the previous six months.Buyers Laboratory Inc. (BLI) is the world’s leading independent evaluator of document imaging hardware and software.

This is a excerpt from the BLI website public news article:

With an increasing desire to reduce waste, recoup costs and provide improved print/copy job access and security, schools and businesses are in need of an accounting and cost recovery system that is easy to use, efficient, and affordable—and that can work in a heterogeneous computing environment. PaperCut MF is a cross-platform solution that facilitates accounting, billing, tracking and charging of copy, print and scan jobs through authentication cards or user login at the device. Those cross-platform abilities, along with the solution’s affordability and ease of use, helped PaperCut MV V11.2 earn a Summer 2011 “Pick” award as “Outstanding Cost-Recovery Solution” from the editors at BLI.

Read the full news item at the Buyers Laboratory website.

Of course here at selectec HQ we already know PaperCut is outstanding, which is probably why over 30,000 organisations use it to reduce their print costs and their environmental impact. The report is on v11.2 so we can’t wait for a review of 11.3 or even the soon to be released 11.4!

Any images and text are © 2011 Buyers Laboratory Inc. All rights reserved.

Top of our FAQ and a regular in our sales & support mailbox – How does PaperCut MF differ from PaperCut NG?

Good question, with a very simple answer. Both PaperCut MF and NG are very similar and at a technical level share the same code base. Side by side other than a different logo you won’t notice anything to differentiate the two products. The difference is that PaperCut MF has the ability to interface with hardware devices (e.g. MFPs) to deliver extra features. Examples of this integration include:

• Embedded software that runs on the MFP to track and control access (e.g. copier use) at the device.
• Integration with 3rd party copier hardware terminals and controllers for devices (MFDs and printers) that don’t yet support embedded or on-board solutions.
• Network card readers to facilitate secure print release and find-me printing via card swipe at any print device.
• Cash payment hardware – enabling users to reload their PaperCut MF user account in pay-per-print environments.
• A few other complex integration areas which are too obscure to list here in an FAQ!

All other features, including general print tracking, print quotas, and rules based printing and driverless web print, etc. are identical on both PaperCut MF and PaperCut NG.

Spot the difference

FYI: http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/chalk-and-cheese.html

With around 20 changes to embedded software and loads of core software enhancements, fixes and updates 11.2 has something for everyone.  The most notable new enhancement released within 11.2 is the ability to now output details of a user’s department and office history.  E.g. If a user switches department midway through a month, print audit reports showing activity by department will now account for their activity in the old department for the first half of the month and the new department for the second half. The biggest change on the embedded side of things is a revamped interface for Sharp OSA devices and you can expect plenty of new features in the upcoming months to take advantage of OSAv4.

Release Notes

11 April 2011 – PaperCut MF 11.2 (Build 13713)

Good news everyone PaperCut 10.6 is now available for download.

This new version has nearly 30 enhancements/fixes to keep PaperCut running smoothly as well as two completely new features a lot of sites will find useful.

The first of the new features is a default shared account may now be configured per-user. This represents the user’s most commonly used account, and can be useful for users who mostly charge to the same account, but occasionally need access to others. The default shared account is automatically selected for the user when they print. This will also save time on the various embedded solutions.

The second feature added to 10.6 is for organizations with more than one user directory (e.g. a new Microsoft Active Directory and a legacy LDAP server with users that have not been migrated) can now synchronize, import and authenticate against both at the same time.

What are you waiting for? Grab the download and update.

Please note:
PaperCut MF users – If you are an existing customer looking to upgrade your current install of PaperCut MF, then please contact us.
Resellers please use the dedicated reseller portal provided.

One of the most popular questions via our website or over the phone seems to be: What is the difference between PaperCut NG and MF?

 As you probably know PaperCut NG gives you these key features:

• Control student print quota, or charge for printing.
• Track and budget staff printing by faculty or department.
• Simple installation – starts working immediately.
• Directory integration with automatic user account creation.
• Simple web-based administration for office staff.
• Automatic scheduling of credit/quotas.
• Solutions for managing wireless laptop printing.
• Runs on Windows, Mac, Linux and Novell, making PaperCut the most flexible and integrated management solution available.

Of course PaperCut MF has all of the above features as well, so what exactly is the difference? In truth, the answer is ‘very little’. Apart from a change of logo and a few extra tabs, regular PaperCut users wouldn’t notice much difference – that is until you throw a photocopier into the mix. PaperCut MF is designed to capture “off the glass” walk-up copying. It can achieve this using two methods:

       1. Modern embedded applications that run directly on a multifunctional device, enabling single sign-on using existing domain infrastructure.

       2. Direct TCP/IP network connection with selected 3rd party hardware terminals.

Both options allow user authentication and access via various login methods including user name and password, PIN codes,  as well as common card formats including: magnetic stripe (“swipe”); barcode; proximity.

Basically, if a customer is only ever going to want/need to monitor and/or control printing, then NG is the ideal solution. However, if now or in the future a customer is looking to monitor and/or control printing and copying (and, increasingly, scanning and faxing), then MF is the right option. Currently, we have a lot of sites planning for the future, so MF has been installed and is being used solely for monitoring printers, until the time comes to implement copier control and monitoring.

PaperCut MF is a complete integrated copy and print solution that you can manage from within a single mature application. We can offer a 40-day trial of PaperCut MF to any interested parties, but we suggest you contact us with your requirements first.

PaperCut Features	PaperCut NG	PaperCut MF
Set print quotas on individuals, groups or across departments
Automated Quota Allocation System
Track and charge walk-up / off-the-glass copier usage, just like for printers
Simple installation – starts working immediately
Directory integration with automatic user account creation
Clustered  Server Support to Increase efficiency and distribute wear and tear
Scalability up to 100,000+ Users
External Database Support
Reasonable licensing that doesn’t dictate your IT infrastructure
Multiple print server support as standard
Runs on Windows, Mac, Linux, Novell and mixed environments
Print Job Filtering and Restrictions
Support for Hardware-Based Copier Terminals
Support for Copy Control via Embedded MFD Software
Hundreds of report combinations to view, export as file or deliver via email
Monitor locally attached printers
Error notifications when printers are in error
Charge copying to accounts that can be shared by multiple users
Secure print release via PC-based print release stations
Secure print release via card reader using fast release terminal
Secure print release via staff and end-user web interfaces
Secure print release via hardware terminals
Secure print release via embedded MFD software
Monitor faxing and scanning on supported hardware
Web-based staff print release
Find Me Printing (pull printing)
Advanced business reporting
Add credit to user’s accounts via admin web interface
Support for cash value loaders
Support for web based credit card payments
Real-time environmental Impact statistics
Manage wireless and unauthenticated printing from user-owned devices
Administer the system straight from your web browser anywhere on the network
Bill back printing costs to clients
TopUp/PrePaid Cards – ideal for student payment management
Open architecture – full documentation and APIs provided to all customers

This is a bugfix release for PaperCut MF 9.8, and contains the following changes:  

Enhancements:  

• New option to alert users by email when their refund requests are processed.

Fixes:  

• The advanced client now uses a case-insensitive sort to improve the ordering of accounts that contain a mix of uppercase and lowercase characters.
• Improved web service proxy code and examples on how to use the PaperCut XML Web Services API.
• Fixed regression that caused slow analysis of PostScript spool files when using page-level color detection.

This release includes improvements for print servers running CUPS 1.4, such as Mac OS 10.6 and recent Linux distributions. Customers with such print servers should update to this version when possible.  

Enhancements:  

• Improved low toner notifications to clearly separate which printers are newly low in toner and those that have been notified previously. Also added a new option to only send the low toner notification email when there is at least one new printer that is newly low on toner.
• User client: new option default-account-pin to specify a default PIN/code to be pre-entered on the account selection pop-up.
• Improved user manual documentation for configuring Web Print in sandbox mode.
• Improved credit/balance display on devices when using a custom number of decimal places or unusual currency formats.

Fixes:  

• Improved support for print servers running CUPS 1.4, such as Mac OS 10.6 and recent Linux distributions.
• Fixed PAM configuration issue that may have prevented Unix Standard authentication working on Mac OS 10.6.
• Improved stability of print provider when analysing very large Canon spool files.
• Fixed error running the Printer Environmental Impact report.
• Fixed problem when displaying the pending printer refunds which could cause the paging controls to not work as expected. E.g. the paging controls may not appear even though there was more than a page of refund requests.
• Fixed display problems with Simplified Chinese text in the Windows installer.
• Fixed a problem that could stop the user client from closing when the Exit menu was selected.

Printer compatibility improvements:  

Copier / Device Integration:  

A few weeks ago one of our PaperCut reseller buddies came to us with a problem and (insert sound of own trumpet being blown) we delivered a solution.

Problem?

A few of the schools this reseller provides services to wished to monitor prints and copies on Ricoh machines. They wanted staff and students to be issued with wireless contact cards and for users to walk up to the copiers “swipe” the card and be presented with two options: 1) release any prints sent to the device by the user; 2) start photocopying and have everything be charged to a central store.

PaperCut MF and Ricoh Embedded were chosen and everything should have worked fine apart from one small issue. The cards they had issued staff/students with were “Paxton cards” from the Net2 Access system.

Answer?

The first task was to find a reader that could read something unique off each card.
Second task was to get this mystery reader working with a photocopier (something of a black art)

I will skip all the boring bits but after a few weeks of hard work, tweaking, cursing and generally finding the rest of the world useless we now have a system in place for this to work perfectly. At the same time we learned a lot about card readers on the Ricoh platform and we are fairly confident we can now get any card reader working.

So if you are using Paxton HiTag2 class cards and want to start using PaperCut MF give us a call and we will make your day.

Clever stuff, huh?

PaperCut MF – Copy and print control
PaperCut MF extends the print, capture, billing and charge capabilities of PaperCut, enabling organizations of any size to manage all copying and printing produced across their entire multifunctional copier and printer fleets using a single low cost software application.

To capture “off the glass” walk-up copying, PaperCut MF supports:

•direct TCP/IP network connection with selected 3rd party hardware terminals, enabling user authentication and access via common card formats including: magnetic stripe (“swipe”) cards, proximity cards, barcode cards and smart cards.
•embedded applications that run directly on a multifunctional device, enabling single sign-on using existing domain infrastructure (on selected devices).
Customers also have the option to implement a complete integrated copy and print solution and manage it from within a single mature application.