• Fall - 300 pages
• Spring + Summer Session I - 300 pages
• Summer Session II - 300 pages

• Multiple copies that were printed
• Garbled output from using command line lpr or mpage on a .pdf file
• Garbled output from printing a .pdf file in the browser
• Encoding related errors

• Toner outages
• Power outages
• Print system malfunctions (with evidence)

1. Ask an EWS operator for help if you have any confusion BEFORE you print including information about which printer works better for certain types of jobs.
2. Preview your document in the program you are using to print, if possible.
3. Instead of directly printing, print your document to a postscript file and check it again with Ghostview (available on Windows, Solaris and Linux platforms) (our print system uses the PS format, so if that doesn't look right, your printout probably won't).
4. Check the printer with a test sheet before you print a large job to check toner levels.
5. When printing any job, watch the pages come out of the printer and make sure everything is OK. Don't assume! If you catch a bad print early, you can cancel the job on the printer and minimize your loss.

One of the most common printing problems are errors when printing PDF documents. Here are a few guidelines to follow when printing PDF documents.

• Linux: Never print a PDF from the command line. Open it in acroread and then print from within the program.
• Windows: If the PDF is being viewed within a web browser, DO NOT print from the browser. First, save the PDF to your home directory. Then, open the PDF in Acrobat. Finally, select print from within Acrobat to send the file to the print queue.
• As mentioned above in the Best Practices:
  Instead of directly printing, print your document to a postscript file and check it with Ghostview (available on all platforms). This will allow you to check your document before printing.

The following print commands provide users with ways to send print jobs from the command line and manipulate print jobs to help conserve paper and print quotas.  For further explanations of the print commands discussed, type man and the command following it at a command prompt to get a more detailed explanation on how each command functions.

Never print a PDF file from the command line. Open it in acroread and print from there.

lpr

To send a text (.txt) or PostScript (.ps) file to a printer from a Linux or Solaris workstation, enter the following command:

lpr -Pprinter_name file_name

For examples, see: Unix Command Guide.

mpage

Users often need to print multiple pages on one sheet of paper due to the large amount of pages that needs to be printed.  To facilitate the printing of mutliple pages on one page, EWS offers a utility called 'mpage' on the Linux and Solaris workstations. The usage of mpage is as follows:

mpage -# -Pprinter_name file_name

The above '#' represents the number of pages that will be put on one sheet of paper (# can be 2, 4, and so on).  The use of mpage shrinks down the size of the font that appears on a regular page by a certain factor.  For example, if a user chooses 2 as the #, the output will result in splitting the paper into two parts (as 2 pages are now printed on 1 sheet), and the size of the font printed will be reduced by a factor of 2.

For examples, see: Unix Command Guide.

As of Spring 2006, all EWS print jobs will be managed exclusively using the EWS Print Queue Web Tool. The client-based print queue tools (such as PQ, PQ2, & PQJ) will no longer be available or supported through EWS.

Opening the Print Queue Web Tool

Before printing a job you may want to examine the available printer queues to determine which printer has the least number of pending print jobs. Your job will be printed sooner from a print queue with fewer and smaller jobs. Once your print job has been submitted, you may also want to know where it is in the print queue (i.e., how many jobs are ahead of your job).

To view the EWS print queues, start up a web browser (Mozilla or Firefox are recommended) on any EWS workstation and go to the Print Queue Web Tool at: https://print.ews.uiuc.edu. You will need to authenticate with your UIUC NetID and NetID Password using Bluestem to access this web application.

As a convenience to EWS users, an icon has been setup on the Linux, Solaris and Windows desktops entitled, "Print Job Browser". By clicking this icon, the web browser will automatically open to the Print Queue Web Tool.

Switching between queues

The queues for each printer can be viewed by simply clicking on the corresponding navigation tab at the top of the Print Queue Web Tool. The 'my jobs' tab shows all jobs owned by you, while the printer tabs show all jobs in the queue for the particular printer being viewed. To see state changes in the queue, click your web browser's refresh button.

Refreshing a print queue

To refresh the queue being viewed in the Print Queue Web Tool, click the button for the queue view you'd like to refresh (Do not use the web browser refresh button to refresh queue views). If a job fails to show up or the state of a job is not properly changing, there might be a problem with the print system and may require further evaluation by an EWS Lab Operator.

Releasing a print job

After a job has been sent to an EWS printer queue, it needs to be released from the queue in order to be printed.  By clicking either the 'my jobs' navigation tab or the tab for which printer the job was sent (for example: dcllas1), your job should show up in the job listing, ordered by when it was sent according to the assigned job ID. If a job that has been sent is not showing up, refresh the queue view by clicking the button for the desired queue view you'd like to refresh.

When the job shows up in the queue, it has been successfully submitted and should be in the 'hold' state, waiting to be released.

If the job fails to show up, there has been a problem with the job submission process and may need to be resubmitted and/or evaluated further by an EWS Lab Operator. If you cannot find an EWS Lab Operator, please send a detailed email to ews@uiuc.edu explaining what type of file was submitted, approximately when the job was sent, to which printer the job was sent and any other information you think would be helpful for troubleshooting purposes.

To release the print job, or multiple jobs if more than one have been sent, simply select the jobs you'd like to release by clicking the related check boxes under the 'Select' column heading and click the green 'release' button. To select all of your jobs, use the 'Select All' (within the 'my jobs' view) or 'Select Mine' (within a specific printer queue view) in the lower lefthand corner of the Print Queue Web Tool. Selected jobs may be unselected by clicking 'Select None'. You may only release jobs that are owned by you (see the 'User' column for ownership details).

If a job has been successfully released, it will be highlighted with a different color: 'green' for active and 'yellow' for pending. A job that is in the 'active' state is currently being processed by a printer and can no longer be cancelled. A job in the 'pending' state is waiting for an active job to complete and still may be cancelled. To cancel a job, click the check box for the job to be cancelled and click the red 'cancel' button. NOTE: Jobs that are cancelled while in the 'pending' state may not get cancelled if the job goes active on the system before it receives a cancel request.

Cancelling or deleting a print job

A job can be cancelled while it is in the 'hold' or 'pending' state. Jobs that are in the 'active' state cannot be cancelled using the Print Queue Web Tool. To cancel a job, click the check box related to the job to be cancelled under the 'Select' column and click the red 'cancel' button. The cancelled job should disappear from the queue.

Completing Print Queue Web Tool session

To end a Print Queue Web Tool session, simply close your web browser. Do not leave Print Queue Web Tool sessions unattended.

EWS has three color printers available for use:

• dclcolor1 and is located in DCL L426
• ehcolor1 is located in Engineering Hall 406 B8 (Windows lab)
• mecolor1 is located in MEL 1009

When printing to the color printer it is important to know that printing one color page is equal to printing four (4) black and white pages on another EWS printer.

To find out how much of your quota you have used type uquota at the UNIX prompt, or look at the bottom of a print browser window at a Windows workstation.

Special Note:  If your print job seems "stuck" please tell the lab consultant.  Do not resubmit your print job multiple times for this will only slow things down even more.  Print jobs are not printed automatically.

To conserve paper and other printing resources, we ask that students recycle all discarded paper products.  There are recycling bins in every lab.  Printouts will be saved for two days.

EWS is not responsible for lost or stolen printouts.  Please do not use the printers as a copy machine.  If you need multiple copies of a printout, please use a copy machine.