Pitt Lab Printer

This software is provided AS-IS. Use this program at your own risk. The creator of this product cannot be held responsible for any damages or loss directly or indirectly related to the use of this software.

Although you're not physically in the computer labs when you print using this program, you're still using University computing resources. This means that you still must abide by the University of Pittsburgh's Computing Policies and Procedures.

By using this software, you agree to the above conditions. If you do not agree, then immediately cease using this software.

If you have a problem using this program, don't call the Technology Help Desk nor ask any of the Computing Lab Consultants for help, because the University of Pittsburgh had no part in creating or supporting this product.

This software contains absolutely no malware or spyware of any kind. There is an opt-in anonymous debugging participation program. This information allows me to make bug fixes more rapidly. The information collected is the Unix output and whether or not the printing was successful. I do not collect user names, passwords or IP addresses.
I will not give out any of the information recorded (described above) to anyone.

System Requirements

This program requires an active Internet connection and the Java Runtime Environment (at least version 5). Most computers already have this installed; if not, you can download it here.

How to Print Documents

Windows users:

1. You need to convert the document you want to print to a PDF or PostScript. If the document is already a PDF or PostScript file, skip ahead to step 2.
   
   If you are using Windows Vista or don't want to install additional software, I recommend using Doc2PDF. Doc2PDF is a web-based program that converts documents to PDF. Convert your document to PDF using Doc2PDF by clicking here. After receiving the generated PDF file, proceed to step 2.
   
   Alternatively, you can install PDFCreator, a software package to convert your documents to PDF (or PostScript). I don't recommend using this program if you have Windows Vista, as it has compatibility issues with Vista.
   Follow these steps to install and use PDFCreator:
   
   1. Download and install the PDF Creator here.
      Accept the license agreement, and continue clicking "Next" until it is installed.
      You only need to install the PDF Creator once.
      
   2. Open the document you want to print using the program that you created it with (for example, open Microsoft Word to print a Word document, etc.), and select the Print option.
   3. Choose "PDFCreator" as the printer to use from the drop-down menu.
   4. Change any other settings that you wish, then click "Print".
   5. You will then be presented with a Save file box. Save the file.
   
   
2. Open the Pitt Lab Printer program by double-clicking on the "ForWindowsUsers.bat" file.
3. Select the desired file, destination lab, and select the simplex/duplex setting.
4. Enter the number of copies that you wish to print (the maximum amount is 20).
5. Enter your Pitt user name and password.
6. Click print. You will see a bunch of text appear in the black window that opened. You can ignore this information (or check it out if you're curious; it's data about your computer negotiating with Pitt's servers).
7. You will receive a confirmation message saying that the print job has been sent to the printer. Note that depending on your connection speed and size of the file, it may take over a minute to completely send the print job.
8. To check that it is being printed, click on the "Check Print Quota" button on the window.

1. Open the document that you wish to print.
2. Go to the "Print" option.
3. MAC USERS: Select the drop-down labeled "PDF" and select "Save PDF as PostScript". Make a name for the file.
   Open the PittLabPrinter folder and double-click on "PittLabPrinter.jar". The program will open.
4. LINUX USERS: Check the box labeled "Print to File". Create a file name for the PostScript file and save it. Be sure to add the ".ps" extension to the end of the file name, if the program does not do that already.
   Open the Pitt Lab Printer program by opening a terminal session then changing your directory to the directory to where the program is located.
   Run the command "java -jar PittLabPrinter.jar".
5. Select the desired file, destination lab, and select the simplex/duplex setting.
6. Enter the number of copies that you wish to print (the maximum amount is 20).
7. Enter your Pitt user name and password.
8. Click print.
9. You will receive a confirmation message saying that the print job has been sent to the printer. Note that depending on your connection speed and size of the file, it may take over a minute to completely send the print job.
10. To check that it is being printed, click on the "Check Print Quota" button on the window.

1. The following file types are supported:
   

   PDF	PS	PRN	TXT
   Java	PHP	C	CPP
   PY	PL	BAT	SH
   VB	CS	D	SQL

   
   If you want any additional (plain text) programming languages added to the list, let me know, as they will most likely work.
   I prevent all other file types from being printed, because if an invalid file type is sent the printer, your print quota can be drained (and a mass of pages containing gibberish will be printed).
2. If you go to pick up your print job at the lab and all that is there is the banner sheet, then it's likely that you have the wrong paper size selected on your computer. Go to the configuration for the PDFCreator (on Windows) and set the paper size to Letter.
3. The program uploads the file you want to print to the root directory of your FTP (AFS) space, then deletes it after printing. If for some reason you have a file in your home directory with the name of "RemotePrint[your Pitt username].[file extension of file]", it will be overwritten.
4. The number of copies functionality sends multiple print jobs to the printer instead of combining the copies into one print job. Please keep this in mind when sending multiple copies of the same file.

• SSH and SFTP functionality provided by SSHTools
  http://sourceforge.net/projects/sshtools/

I welcome feedback and questions that you have about the program. Please send any questions and comments to cjb28@pitt.edu.