Another year, another major release.

2011 was a busy year for everyone and saw PaperCut v11 expand its feature set beyond expectations. PaperCut v11 had twelve releases, the highlights of the previous year’s work were:

• iPad Printing support
• Web Cashier
• Delegated print release
• New web payment integration options
• SNMP hardware checking for print jobs
• Print job watermarking now supports a wider variety of printers and drivers
• A new admin dashboard
• Plus a heap of other enhancements, fixes and embedded tweaks.

So what’s new?

PaperCut 12.0 adds a regularly requested new feature, automatic conversion to duplex and grayscale. Before v12, PaperCut could only disallow all single sided (simplex) and colour printing jobs on a printer, but now jobs can be magically converted to duplex and/or grayscale. This will be useful for enforcing print policies such as only allowing students to print in duplex. The conversions can also be added to a script and the only limit there is your imagination. The PaperCut Dev team have worked long and hard on this and they look forward to getting feedback over the next few weeks.

Also thrown into v12 is a new report, we call this the Executive Summary. This gives, in a single page, an overview of some useful metrics about printers, users and their jobs.

The eagle eyed amongst you will notice a new icon for the client software and the end user web page has finally been updated to match the admin dashboard. We also have a new custom dashboard widget this will allow an administrator to add a link to an external application for easy access from the administration dashboard. Last of all we have a bunch of new scripts and improved translations. Let’s not forget the usual mix of fixes as well.

What next?

Top secret! But we will have support for a new embedded platform very soon. We will also be looking to improve our driver support for automatic conversion as and when users report issues.
Full release notes below.

20 January 2012 – PaperCut MF 12.0 (Build 16353)

This is a bugfix release for version 12.0 and contains the following changes:

19 January 2012 – PaperCut MF 12.0 (Build 16338)

New features:

• Conversion Filters – This feature provides the functionality to convert colour jobs to grayscale and simplex jobs to duplex. E.g. convert jobs on high volume printers to duplex to save paper, automatically convert emails printed in colour to grayscale.
• New Executive Summary report providing organization-wide summary statistics and environmental impact.
• The user web interface has been updated with a new modern look.
• PaperCut has a new icon!

Enhancements:

• Added support for a new custom dashboard widget to display customer/site specific messages/notices to administrators.
• Web Cashier:
• Operators can now look up users by card number (including though use of an attached card reader).
• When a purchase would take an unrestricted user’s balance below $0, a confirmation message is now displayed.
• When restarting the application server on large sites the reconnection of secondary servers is now staggered to prevent high load.
• New advanced print scripting scripts and snippets:
• snippet for denying jobs printed out of hours
• script to convert email printing to grayscale
• when printing a large job, ask the user if they would like to automatically convert to duplex to save paper
• New translations for Danish and Polish, plus significant updates to French and Spanish.
• Internet control: Added a config option to swap the sent and received bytes parse from proxy log files.

Fixes:

• Fixed problem using Web Cashier with Swiss Francs.
• Fixed problem when logging in to the PaperCut App for iOS if the username is entered containing uppercase characters.
• Disallow printer scripts setting the print job costs to NaN (not a number). This resulted in failing to record the print job.
• Fixed display of printer hardware check related screens in some languages.
• Fixed issue disabling pay stations from the Devices tab in the administration interface.
• Fixed the Rates page in the user web interface to display only printers.
• Fixed minor status reporting problem when testing shared account imports.

Printer compatibility improvements:

• Fixed page count detection for TOSHIBA e-STUDIO 855 PostScipt duplex jobs with odd numbers of pages.
• Improved page size detection for Adobe InDesign documents printed to Xerox PostScript printers from Mac.
• Fixed page count detection for HP LaserJet M4345 MFP PCL6.
• Improved grayscale detection in Sharp PostScript printers.
• Added page size detection for NEC MultiWriter 8250N printer.

Copier / Device Integration:

• Value loader devices supporting user self-registration: Added an option to use the swiped card number as the username of the created user.
• Sharp Onboard/Embedded (OSA): Fixed a problem that could cause the “Unable to enable device” error that could appear if the user double clicked the “OK” button on the account confirmation screen.
• Xerox Onboard/Embedded (Network Accounting / JBA): Enforce the group-based access controls to login to the MFP device.
• Xerox Onboard/Embedded (Xerox Secure Access): Added support for USB card readers supported on some recent Xerox MFPs.

We get a few “can PaperCut….” emails each week, most are simple to answer but some are a little quirky. Below you will find the pick of the week!

I want to give unlimited Black&White print/copy job(but still deducted from the account for reporting) and limit the colour jobs with a quota.

This is fairly easy to do using the advanced charging tab on the printer configuration, and setting the grey scale discount to 100%. That makes every black and white job discount the entire cost of the job, and does not deduct from the users quota. Colour jobs will still be charged at the full price, as it is configured in the printer configuration.

Colour copies versus black and white copies should work the same way, although it may not show before the copy job is completed, depending on the copier manufacturer. Because PaperCut doesn’t have complete information until the entire copy job is completed the cost may not be appropriately updated until the job is completed and processed.

How well does PaperCut work on Novell?

Good question, I think this video says it all. I wonder if the guy who won the server was upset about having to take it on a plane home

I am running PaperCut MF on a Sharp MFD, if I do not have any pending print jobs can I skip straight to the copy function?

11.6 should allow the print release screen to be skipped if the user has no jobs pending. This will not be on by default.

I want SSO (Single Sign On) between my embedded apps – Can you help?

Yeah SSO would be nice, often used with scanning applications like Drivve, Scan2Oneself and GlobalScan. Currently SSO works fine on the Sharp OSA platform but other platforms are a little trickier. If you need SSO let us know.

Does PaperCut work with ***Insert Name of Online Payment Provider***?

The full list of supported payment gateways is available on the PaperCut website here.
If the service you use is not listed then there are options to integrate using the PaperCut web services API if the provider is interested, further details are available here. The last few weeks we have had a lot of emails about ParentPay, we suggest you discuss this with ParentPay, PaperCut have provided all the tools a payment provider needs.

Does PaperCut run on NetWare?

Nope sorry – NetWare is old! Organizations that are currently running NetWare are however able to easily deploy PaperCut. We suggest setting up a separate OES Linux server (or VM) and use this to host the print queues and PaperCut. That way the impact is minimal as your file and directory services can remain on your existing server, and it’s just the print queues that move across to the new OES Linux system.

I have Riso Machines can PaperCut track “copy jobs” ?

Riso have been working hard to get a Copicode IP working with their hardware. This solution should be ready to roll out by the end of the year.

I am having copy count issues with my Lexmark X792 and X954 running PaperCut embedded.

Duplex and large copy jobs do not seem to work as intended- Lexmark have released new firmware to fix this. Contact Lexmark for a fix.

Here in the UK the popular choice amongst Law Firms is to use Elite from Thomson Reuters. Elite is a premier provider of financial and practice management systems to the legal industry and to other professional services markets including accounting, marketing services and management & IT consulting. We have developed an application to automatically synchronise Elite client matter codes with PaperCut’s Shared Accounts in order to make billing customers easier. We also have the ability to import the costing from PaperCut into Elite so everything you need to bill your client is in one place. 

Of course we do not discriminate against other Law Firm software, so if you are not using Elite but still require an interface with PaperCut in order to have uniform and timely updates of your Shared Accounts or Matters, then let us know. 

For Elite integration details or for custom development please email us at sales@selectec.co.uk

The development team had a very busy day this week building, testing and documenting 11.5  to get it out on time. We hope you appreciate the hard work put in.

So what delights can we expect? Something for everyone really. The stand out change is the new Web Cashier feature. The Web Cashier feature is a simple web interface that provides a till/cashier to facilitate simple transactions using PaperCut accounts. It’s designed for non-technical staff in educational organizations. For example the cashier user may:

• Charge end-user accounts, or shared accounts, for ad-hoc services such as laminating, binding or library fines.
• Deposit funds to a user’s personal printing account, usually after receiving a cash or electronic payment.

It’s early days for Web Cashier so expect a lot of enhancements to come.

Also of note here is the fact that SNMP Page count hardware validation may now be used in Windows clusters – Mr Microsoft finally fixed the issue. While we are talking about SNMP we noticed a lot of requests for using a different SNMP community string, you can now use a custom string if needed. In terms of embedded software the biggest changes came about on the Kyocera platform, thanks to feedback from Kyocera UK for the input. Also its worth noting that we have added SSO support to the Sharp OSA platform. Third party applications such as scanning apps can now access information about the logged in user, as authenticated by PaperCut.

Thank you PaperCut!

Full release notes below.

12 October 2011 – PaperCut MF 11.5 (Build 15204)

Another week in support had almost been and gone, here is this week’s dose of handy information that may not be obvious.

I have renamed my users in the directory (e.g. in Active Directory). How do I also rename my accounts in PaperCut?

People get married and cause admins extra work: http://www.papercut.com/kb/Main/RenameUserAccounts Or just stop people getting married.

Need to mass deploy the secondary print server to local monitor local printers.

Check this link out: http://www.papercut.com/products/ng/manual/ch-secondary-print-windows-silent-install.html

Need to mass uninstall the secondary print server?

You can run the unins000.exe file located in [app-path]\, normally C:\Program Files\PaperCut MF\
This also takes the /verysilent switch. More info here: http://www.papercut.com/kb/Main/AutomatingRemoval

Want to add another decimal place in PaperCut ?

• From the administration interface, navigate to Options -> General -> Display Options.
• Check Change number of decimal places
• Enter a new number in the decimal places box
• Press Apply.

Using PaperCut advanced scripting to move print jobs between print servers?

Read this: http://www.papercut.com/products/ng/manual/ch-find-me-printing-and-load-balancing-configuration.html#jr-advanced-config-inter-server

Want to use internal groups in PaperCut?

Then read this: http://www.papercut.com/kb/Main/InternalGroups

We get a few “can PaperCut….” emails a week, most are simple to answer but some are a little quirky.

Here are this week’s odd ones.

Deleted the print history and reset all the print counters, but the dashboard still shows the total number of prints. How can you reset it?

It is possible to reset that value by going to the Options tab of the admin console, then clicking Config Editor on the right, if you search on the word total, 2 entries will show up, you need to edit the print.stats.total.pages to say 0 for it to reset the dashboard counter. Please be careful using the config editor and back up your installation before changing values there.

Want to use a different SMTP settings for PaperCut such as TLS or a different port?

If your email server requires SMTP authentication, the username and password can be configured by setting the notify.smtp.username and notify.smtp.password settings in the advanced configuration editor. If your email server supports encrypted SMTP using TLS (e.g Gmail), you can enable this by changing the setting notify.smtp.enable-tls to Y.  Most SMTP servers will allow encrypted communication using the default port 25. If the SMTP server uses an alternate port for TLS encryption the port can be configured with the notify.smtp.port setting.

Need to change settings on a RFIDeas reader?

Use this http://www.rfideas.com/Software/pcProxConfig.exe

Do you want to hide document names on windows printer queues?

• Open the print-provider.conf located in [app-path]\providers\print\win\
• Locate HideDocumentNames=off and change to HideDocumentNames=on
• Optionally locate HideDocumentNamesText=[hidden] and change [hidden] to a value of your choice
• Save the changes to the print-provider.conf
• Restart the PaperCut Print Provider Service

Note: If you are running any Secondary Print Servers then the print-provider.conf file will need to be changed on each Secondary Print Server.

Due to the connected world we live in I ran up a quick video for a customer. It is basic but to the point.

Ever wondered how often the toner levels update?

Well wonder no longer http://www.papercut.com/kb/Main/TonerUpdateFrequency

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)

Good news everyone, PaperCut 11.4 is now available for download. Included in 11.4 are a host of enhancements and fixes to make life easier for users and admins.

Also thrown into version 11.4 is a great new feature (requested on a weekly basis by the selectec team) called print release delegation. This means a teachers assistant can release print jobs on behalf of teachers, or for personal assistants to release print jobs on behalf of others etc.

On the hardware side of things you will find a host of tweaks and fixes plus that all important support for the Konica Minolta Bizhub C35 devices.

PaperCut MF 11.4 (Build 14579) -4th August 2011

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