This fall, beige is out and two-tone white and blue is in with the University’s new printing system, based on the Papercut system.

“It’s basically the replacement for Pharos Remote Print. It allows students to print from their personal devices to University print stations,” stated Joel Arakaki, the director of client services for ITS.

Arakaki noted when ComDoc’s contract with the University recently expired, new printers were included in the negotiation process for a new contract. The printers are all new and not refurbished or used, replacing some printers that were nearly a decade old.

A lot can change in a decade, and the new printing system reflects that. Gone are the old desktop printer release stations; now the printers simply have a touchscreen built in with a card reader attached for faster printing. The older Pharos system did not support printing from mobile devices. The new PaperCut system supports mobile devices such as iPhones, iPads, Android devices and Chromebooks so students can print on the go, while maintaining support for traditional platforms such as Windows, MacOS and GNU/Linux via a Java app. Other platforms may still be able to print via the University’s printing website, papercut.bgsu.edu.

The new printers also have an app ecosystem, much like the Apple App Store, or the Google Play Store. This allows ITS to add additional capabilities to the printers without replacing the printer themselves. Arakaki provided an example of a feature currently not possible but that may be added in the future by such an app — the ability to print documents directly from a OneDrive account.

Since all the new printers now support color, students can have an easier time printing in computer labs. For example, under the previous PHAROS system, none of the three printers in the Union Computer Lab were color printers. Now all the printers in the Union computer lab support color. Select printers under departmental control may still be restricted to black and white only, and the default option for all printers is black and white.

Another new feature is the ability for printers set to color to automatically detect a black and white document being printed from it and switch to black and white mode, saving students money. A two-page test print as a single print job confirmed if a document contained both color pages and black and white only pages, the color rate was only charged for the page in color, while the second black and white page was charged the black and white rate. This could save students money if they need to print a document with a color cover page where the rest of the document is in black and white.

Students should still take care to make sure the documents are truly black and white before relying on this. For example, some word processors will automatically color hyperlinks blue.

While on campus or while connected to the campus network through eduroam, students can view their current balance, print jobs and submit print requests at papercut.bgsu.edu. Thanks to the integration of eduroam, a Bowling Green community member could submit a print job while at a conference at Kent State University, then pick it up when they get back to campus, provided they get back within 24 hours.

The papercut website also shows statistics about the environmental impact of a student’s printing habits, such as how many trees were needed to make the paper used, the amount of carbon dioxide released because of the printer activity and how much electricity was used in layman’s terms. A transaction history detailing the cost of each print and remaining balances is also provided.

Some faculty still use faxes to communicate. According to Arakaki, in locations where older machines supported faxes, new machines will also support faxes. Faculty needing to use Secure Print to add PIN protection to their prints will still be able to do so.

Currently prices for printing remain the same as with the old system at $0.05 for a one-sided black and white page and $0.18 for a one-sided color page. The price model will be reevaluated in January 2019.

Not everyone is having an easy time with the new printing system. Josh Wilson, a senior studying criminal justice, attempted to print from a printer in the Union computer lab, but it gave him an error, telling him he needed to “associate my card.”