Printers and Printing Etiquette for Student Printers

The following article was written by an Annenberg student on behalf of grad council a few years ago. Following these guidelines will help make everyone's print jobs run more efficiently.

As the school year gets under way, please take a moment to think about how we want the printer room to look this year. When using the tremendous gift of FREE, UNLIMITED PRINTING, please observe the following printer etiquette:

1. Pick up your printouts promptly. This is especially important if you're printing a lot of stuff on ASC_Student_Bulk_Printer or anything on ASC_Student_Express_Printer.
2. When looking for your article, be sure to carefully sort those of your fellow students. DO NOT pick up a stack of paper from the top of the printer and unthinkingly dump it into the filing bins to the left of the printers. Rather, flip through the stack to make sure you've correctly identified when one person's printing ends and another begins. (If my article is tucked into a stack of articles behind someone else's cover sheet, how should I know how to find it?)
3. If you look for your article and it isn't there and the printer isn't printing, look at the printer's display to see what's wrong. MOST LIKELY ANSWER: no paper. Printer paper is in the cabinets under the printers. Be sure to fill both trays (about 2 reams) when a printer is out. IF IT’S A PROBLEM YOU CANNOT FIX, please contact the IT staff (support@asc.upenn.edu).
4. Set your bulk printer settings to take advantage of two-sided printing. This alone will save countless trees.
   
   Directions:
   1. From the START menu, choose PRINTERS AND FAXES
   2. Right click on the icon labeled "ASC_Student_Bulk_Printer ON ASCPrint"
   3. Select PROPERTIES
   4. From the GENERAL tab, choose PRINTING PREFERENCES
   5. From the FINISHING tab, check the box that says PRINT ON BOTH SIDES
   6. Choose APPLY and/or OK until you're back to where you started 
   7. Next time you print something on ASC_Student_Bulk_Printer, make sure it came out two-sided. If not, ask somebody (advanced student, support, etc.) for assistance.      You can always deselect this for any individual print job, but there's no reason that single-sided printing should be your default.
5. To see where your printout is in the queue, follow the above directions through a & b, except in step b, double click (this time with the left button) on the printer in question.
6. Student Bulk and ASC_Student_Express_Printer are for just what the titles imply. If it can wait, if it's big, or if 2-sided makes sense, please use ASC_Student_Bulk_Printer. (That way, if you reeeeally need it now, ASC_Student_Express_Printer will be open.).
7. If you must print a document that is extremely long or 10+ MB in file size (huge files take WAY longer to process), either a) print it in the early morning, late evening, or on the weekend, or b) break it up into 20- or 30-page chunks and take a breather in between. (Using step 5, we can see if it’s you who has stopped up the printer.)

FREE, UNLIMITED PRINTING IS A TREMENDOUS PRIVILEGE. Please use it respectfully.