Printing
Printing Policy
An EWS account provides a free print quota of 300 pages ($24.00) per semester for any student who is enrolled in College of Engineering degree program or other eligible degree programs. This free print quota is provided to meet basic user printing needs, and is reset to 300 pages ($24.00) the day before the beginning of each semester. Temporary EWS accounts are not issued a free print quota. All users are able to purchase pages through their my.engr account (see: my.engr Print Quota). Unused purchased pages carry over to the following semester. Unused "free" pages are lost at the end of the semester. The following lists free print quota per semester:
- Fall - 300 pages
- Spring + Summer Session I - 300 pages
- Summer Session II - 300 pages
*Juniors receive 400 pages, Seniors receive 500 pages
Your EWS print quota can only be used at the College of Engineering labs. University housing, CITES ICS labs, private housing, the library as well as other Colleges all have different printing systems. Therefore, you will not be able to use your quota at those locations.
EWS strives to provide reliable and error-free printing services. However, we recognize that some printing problems are unavoidable. Because the vast majority of print problem reports we receive are due to user error, our general policy is not to grant refunds. The following printing mishaps are examples of instances where refunds would not be granted:
- 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
However, some EWS printing problems are the result of circumstances outside the user's control. When this can be shown to be the case, we do grant refunds. These types of problems may include:
- Toner outages
- Power outages
- Print system malfunctions (with evidence)
If you wish to seek a refund, please retain any pages that printed improperly, and e-mail ews@illinois.edu. Also, be sure to provide us with detailed information about when the problem occurred, what application was being used, what file was being printed, and to which printer you were trying to print.
Best Practices
- 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.
- Preview your document in the program you are using to print, if possible.
- When printing any job, watch the pages come out of the printer and make sure everything is OK. If you catch a bad print early, you can cancel the job on the printer and minimize your loss.
Printing PDF Documents
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.
Print Commands on Linux
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 workstation, enter the following command:
lpr -P printer_name file_name
To override the default double sided printing option:
lpr -o sides=one-sided 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 multiple pages on one page, EWS offers a utility called 'mpage' on the Linux workstations. The usage of mpage is as follows:
mpage -# -P printer_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.
Printer Queues
All EWS print jobs will be managed exclusively using the MY.ENGR Print Queue Web Tool. Please note that print jobs will be released immediately to the printer you have chosen. Please verify that you have chosen the correct printer prior to printing, as refunds are not given for successful print jobs.
Color Printing
EWS has three color printers available for use:
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.
Checking Quota
To find out how much of your quota you have used, visit the MY.ENGR Print Queue Web Tool
Laptop Printing
Click here for step-by-step instructions on connecting to an EWS printer from your laptop.
Paper Recycling
EWS encourages paper recycling, and we ask that students recycle all discarded paper products in the recycling bins in each lab.
EWS is not responsible for lost or stolen printouts.
