Printing at the ACCC

ACCC Central Printer Pool:

A group of high quality, duplex, PostScript laser printers. These are "operated" printers -- as each person's output is printed, a Computer Center staff member places it into a plastic bag, then it is delivered to the "distribution" location selected when it was printed. Anyone at UIC may use these printers. There are two central printer distribution locations:

ACCC Remote Printers:

• The remote printers are at remote locations throughout the UIC campus. All of them are high quality laser printers that support PostScript printing, either HP5si/mx or HP8000 Postscript Printers.
• If you're logged into your ACCC Unix workstation account, the names of the remote printers are building abbreviation followed by the room number. For example, the name of the remote printer in the SEL 2263 microcomputer lab is SEL2263. Most of the printer destinations on tigger and icarus have been changed to print though the U-Print system that's used in the ACCC public labs.
• If you're using a machine in the ACCC public labs, the names of printers in ACCC's U-Print system are preceded by "U-Print", thus the printer in the SEL 2263 is U-Print SEL2263. Same printer, just slightly different name.
• Anyone may use any of the remote printers in the ACCC's public microcomputer labs, and many of the remote printers at other locations on the campus are also available for public use. However, some of the remote printers belong to specific departments or groups, and arrangements must be made with them if you wish to use their printers.

ACCC Specialty Printers:

For now, this category consists only of the plotter in the A&A lab, but we're experimenting with color printers and hope to have them available soon in some labs.

For most people, most semesters, there is no monetary charge made for printing on ACCC printers. However, we have implemented a new printing system, U-Print. Among the main goals of U-Print is to reduce waste -- there's lots of that in the labs. Allowing you to cancel jobs you don't want printed is one way that U-Print addresses this problem, but there's another: U-Print comes with a per-semester printing quota.

• Each person starts the semester with a $15.00 printing credit. (Per person, not per account.)
• You will be charged 8 cents per physical page printed on black and white printers. Again, other printers may have a different rate schedule.
• A "page" means physical pages printed on black and white printers; duplex pages -- ones printed on both sides the paper -- will be charged as one page. All U-Print print queues print duplex by default.
• Pages printed in color printers or on other specialized printers may have different rate schedules; the rates are posted by each printer.
• A semester is the period beginning on Monday of the week before classes start continuing until Monday of the week before the next semester starts.
• Left-over portions of quotas do not carry over from one semester to the next..

Here's how U-Print works:

1. You submit something to be printed on a U-Print printer.
2. When you're ready to print your print job, at any time up to 12 hours after you submitted it, go to a U-Print station next to a printer in an ACCC lab and bring your UIC i-card with you.
3. Insert your UIC i-card in the card reader next to the U-Print station. The card reader works like an ATM card reader; it holds onto your i-card while you're using the U-Print station. The card reader front panel will display the amount of money that you currently have on the i-card; you will start each semester with a U-print balance of $15.00.
4. Login to the U-Print station using your ACCC netid and password, select the job you want to print, and click Print. (Or Delete to cancel the job.)
5. Logout. The card reader will eject your i-card; be sure to take it with you when you go.

How can you print?

After you login to a personal computer (Mac or Windows) in an ACCC public lab, you may print output:

• Directly, using the operating system's printing commands(s), or
• With the standard printing tools in the available application packages.

Where can you print?

There are remote PostScript printers in or near each ACCC public lab. The computers in each ACCC lab will automatically format the output for the nearest available printer.

• In the vast majority of cases, being formatted for the nearest printer won't limit your requesting that your output being printed on a printer in another ACCC public lab; most lab printers are compatible duplex black-and-white PostScript printers. (See About the ACCC Printers above.)
• If you know you'll want to print the job on a different type of printer, say you're on the west side of campus and you want to print your job on the plotter in the A&A lab, that's not a problem either. The personal computers in all the ACCC labs know about the other ACCC printers.
• To format your job to print on a different type of printer, select its name from the list in the Print dialog box before you submit the job to be printed. (In Windows, select File -> Print..., then click on the down arrowhead to the right of the Name: box and choose the printer name from the drop-down list.)

Which printers are in the U-Print system?

All of the printers in the ACCC public labs use U-Print, as well as the labs in the Honors College (BH 111), the School of Public Health (SPHW 523 and SPH-PI B34 and 178), the College of Pharmacy (PHARM 174), and the College of Medicine (CMW B24), and perhaps others. If there's a U-Print station by a printer, then that printer is in U-Print.

What happens after you submit your job to be printed?

Your job will be held in the U-Print system for 12 hours or until you login to a U-Print station and either print or delete the job. There's a summary of the U-Print system in U-Print: Quotas and Charges above; for details, see the U-Print Web page: U-Print ACCC Public Printing System.

To print on a ACCC printer:

Use:	Example: (printer-name is the name of the printer and file is the name of the file.)
lpr	lpr -P printer-name file

 

For a list of the printers that you can print on from your ACCC Unix account, enter:

On tigger: lpstat

On icarus: lpstat -dP

You must specify the printer name (see About the ACCC Printers above) when printing from Unix, either explicitly as shown above, or by selecting your own default printer (as explained in Using Unix: Printing); there is no system-wide default printer on any ACCC Unix workstation.

If the printer you select is in the U-Print system:

You job won't be printed until you login to the U-Print station of the printer you've chosen or of any compatible printer, and direct it to be printed.
For more on U-Print, see U-Print: Quotas and Charges above.

Is the printer you select in the U-Print system?

Most likely it is. All of the printers in the ACCC public labs use U-Print, as well as the labs in the Honors College (BH 111), the School of Public Health (SPHW 523 and SPH-PI B34 and 178), the College of Pharmacy (PHARM 174), and the College of Medicine (CMW B24).

 

For more information on printing on Unix, see:

• Using Unix: Printing
• FAQ - Printing from Unix

See: Network Printing
This set of ACCC documents describes several network printing options, including both readying your printer for printing over the network and how-to pages for various operating systems and types of networks.

Adobe Acrobe PDF files are the right format for publishing printer-ready files on the Web. The ACCC has a utility that will convert a PostScript file into a PDF file. It's on the Web at: http://www.uic.edu/htbin/accc/ps2pdf
For more information, including instructions on how to produce the PostScript file to be converted, see Distiller on the Web.

Also, Adobe Acrobat Distiller/PDF Writer is installed in the ACCC public labs.