CISE Help & Resources
Printing
Printing at CISE overview
Limited free printing is provided to students of the CISE department.
Printing is controlled via page quotas. Printing is a privlege - which can be taken away if abused.
This resources is to be used by undergraduates for the purpose of completing their assigned course work. Graduate students can use this to complete coursework, research projects and TA needs - such as printing exams.
The table below show quotas for different types of users and the price charged if you go over your quota. The numbers are represent in pages per month, on the first of each month, your quote is reset. At the end of the month your UNIX and Windows usage will be pulled - it's your responsability to stay under your total quota. The default is to print on both sides of page. If you print a two page document, even though you use one sheet of paper, your page count is incremented by two. If you print only on one side, your print quota is incremented by one.
| User | Public | Restricted* | Color | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free | Cost | Free | Cost | Free | Cost | |
| Grad Student | 100 | $0.25 | 150 | $0.25 | 0 | $0.75 |
| TA | 100 | $0.25 | 200 | $0.25 | 0 | $0.75 |
| Undergrad / Class Accounts | 100 | $0.25 | 0 | $0.25 | 0 | $0.75 |
* To simplify maintenance and billing public and restricted quota's have been pooled in to one quota.
Quota Q&A
How do I check my quota?
Unfortunately, there are two places to check your quota one which reports in cents and one that reports in pages.
For items printed from Windows - go to the following URL http://printserv2003/cgi-bin/balance.exe The account system used for Windows will show you used and free in dollar, not pages, ever .25 cents equallys a page
For items printed on a UNIX or Linux workstation: ssh to rain or sand and use the "pquota" command, it will show you your current usage, quota, and the amount which you owe. All charges will be billed at the end of the month. If you just type "pquota" at the command line prompt (on any Sun computer), it will list your current quota and usage. Read the man page for more details and other options.
One important note is that the database of accounting information is updated once per day, so print jobs submitted during the previous 24 hours may not be included.
If I go over one month, can I take it out of the next month's quota? If I don't use all my free pages this month, can I transfer the remainder to next month?
No, unused pages may not be transferred to the next month.
What if I have special printing needs this month?
Note: A thesis does NOT qualify as a special need. According to university policy, the student, NOT the department, should pay for all costs associated with the thesis. We make no attempt to determine if that is what is being printed (so part, or even all, of the thesis, may be printed as free pages) but printing a large thesis will not be accepted as an excuse to increase your quota. Printing a thesis on a private printer to avoid being charged is also an abuse.
What if I don't agree with the number of pages printed, or there are jobs I don't think I should have to pay for?
If you disagree with the number of pages that pquota reports, or if a job fails to print correctly, you should report the problem to consult@cise.ufl.edu. We will examine the logs to determine if there is an error. Please do this as soon as possible after the error occurs so that we can investigate the problem.
We are not responsible for users printing the wrong document, or printing it incorrectly. These pages will usually not be refunded.
Note: You must report this BEFORE it is billed. Once the charge is sent to the registrar (you will be emailed a total charge before this occurs), reversing the charge will only be done in very special cases. Also, the pquota command does NOT reflect any refunded pages (it will continue to show the full number of pages printed). Refunded pages will only appear on the final accounting report which will be sent to users at the end of each accounting period.
How am I be billed?
You will be billed in a method similar to the one the library uses for billing for late books. At the end of the month, the total for all of the months will be sent to the registrar. All billing will be done by the registrar.
I'm a TA. Will I be charged for printing class material for the class I'm TA'ing?
TAs will be granted an increased quota as described above. Other than that, TAs will be treated the same as grad students. There is no need for TAs to do anything to request this increased quota. Once a semester, we will get the information from the secretaries.
Printing Q&A
How do I print from Windows?
To print to a network printer (which includes most of the printers in the department), you must first add the printer to your profile.
From the Start Menu select Settings, then Printers. Select Add Printer. In the Add Printer Wizard, click Next, check box next to Network printer and click Next. You can type in the printer name i.e. \\printserv2003\ps114 (make sure you replace ps114 with the name of the printer you want to use) or click Next and locate the print server. Double click on printserv2003 to see all the printers available to you. Double click on the printer(s) you wish to access.
How do I print from UNIX/Linux?
UNIX and Linux workstations have the current print drivers preloaded
The quickest way to find out what printers are available to you is to open and application like OpenOffice and click print - you will then be able to access a drop down box which will show you all the printers. Once you have this information, you will also be able to print from the command line. An easy way to print a text file is to use the a2ps command.
How do I print from my laptop or self-managed machine?
The CISE Department no longer supports printing from laptops or self-managed machines.
Miscellaneous Q&A
If you want to specify a default printer without always having to use a -Pprinter option, you can create an environment variable PRINTER which contains the name of a printer. From then on, that printer will be used as the default printer. For example, to make ps114 your default printer, add the following line to your .cshrc file:
setenv PRINTER ps114
The next time you log in, that will be your default printer