ITSC Computer Barn Laser Printing Services
ITSC provides laser printing facilities
in each of the three Computer Barns to cater the general printing needs.
All of these laser printers are network connected and you may conveniently
print your email, file, document or image of your screen to the laser printers
from any PCs in the barns. To help in saving a few trees and to reduce
your burden of carrying a large pile of paper around, duplex printing units
are also available in ALL barns to enable you to print double-sided pages.
Color printing
facilities are also available in Barns.
To enjoy these printing facilities, you need a
valid ITSC Network Account, which carries a Print Budget for printing on
the laser printers in the ITSC Computer Barns. Each account will
come with a fixed amount of Print Budget free of
charge. In order to gain a better control of excessive printing, students
requiring additional Print Budget will need to purchase them.
What is my Print Budget entitlement ?
Starting 31 Jan 2000, the Print Budget for each ITSC Network Account will
comprise of two parts: (1) Assigned Print Budget and (2) Purchased Print
Budget. Each student will have an entitlement of $120 Assigned Print
Budget each year free of charge. At the beginning of each new academic
year, your Assigned Print Budget will be reset
to $120. Unused amount from the previous year's Assigned Print Budget cannot
be carried forward to the next academic year.
The amount of Print Budget to be deducted
from your account for every page you print out as follows:
Simplex
Printing
$ 0.30
Duplex
Printing
$ 0.50
Color
Printing
$ 2.40
Click
here for purchasing additional print budget.
You may use the Print Budget
usage enquiry program to check your Print Budget balance, and get detailed
Print Budget statements showing the date and time of print job, print queue,
type of document, and the amount of Print Budget
deducted.
Alternatively, the Print Budget balance can also be checked via "Check
Print Balance" entry under "Department Services" of the Student Intranet
page.
How can I purchase additional Print Budget ?
Additional Print Budget can be acquired as the Purchased
Print Budget in your account. The Purchased Print
Budget will NOT be reset at the beginning of each academic year,
and can be carried forward (but non-refundable) until your account expires.
To acquire additional Print Budget, you need to purchase an "ITSC Additional
Print Budget Coupon" by CASH ONLY from the:
Finance Office counter
(5th floor, Lift 17-18)
Each coupon costs $60, and consists of 10 printing units of $6 each.
Please bring the coupon to our Student Consultants in the Computer Barns
or to the ITSC General Office (2nd floor, Lift 2), and our colleagues will
be able to add your Print Budget. Simply present your coupon and let them
know your account name and the number of units you want to add. Please
note that you have to add a minimum of one unit ($6) each time.
You may come to the Finance Office or ITSC General Office during the
following opening hours:
Monday - Friday
Saturday
Sunday and Public Holiday
9:00am - 12:30pm
9:00am - 11:45am
Closed
2:00pm - 5:00pm
An email will be sent to your account to confirm your Print
Budget increase. The additional Print Budget
purchased will be ready for use in a few minutes. You will have to switch
the default charging from your Assigned Print Budget to your Purchased
Print Budget before the additional Print Budget can be used. This can be
done via the Print Budget usage
enquiry program. Should you fail to receive the confirmation email
or have any problem related to the Print Budget increase, please bring
your coupon to the ITSC General Office.
Note : You may choose to change the Print Budget to be charged
via the aforesaid enquiry program anytime BEFORE you print.
How do I get refund on problem printouts ?
Should you encounter printing problems of poor quality printouts caused
by the printer itself, or a "bug" on the system or application, you
may get refund for your Print Budget. Please come to the ITSC General Office,
bringing along your Student ID Card and the pages which you wish to get
refund on.
All refunds will be in the form of Print Budget
credit, and no cash refund will be available. Refund will NOT be available
when the unsatisfactory printout is caused by negligence of the user. For
example:
-
forgot to log out so that someone else print with your budget,
-
accidentally sending more than one copy to the printer,
-
formatting problems that are not due to system or application error.
Please remember that any printouts you've accidentally or wrongly sent
to the printer may still be canceled on time. Should you require any assistance,
please feel free to contact the Student Consultants. The Print
Budget usage enquiry program is available to assist you in checking
the print job information, e.g. when you send the print job, which print
queue it is sent to, the type of document printed, and the amount of Print
Budget deducted.
Tips on saving your Print Budget
General Guidelines for using the Laser Printers
-
Do not use the Laser printers as photocopiers.
-
Avoid printing large documents which will hold on to the printer for a
long time during busy hours.
-
Make sure that a proper printer driver is used. A common mistake is to
use a dot matrix printer driver for laser printing.
-
Printers in the Computer Barns can only accept three document formats:
plain text, Postscript and PCL. Documents in other format must not be sent
to the print queues. Please check with the Student Consultants if you have
problem.
-
A large area of dark on a printing page will consume much printer toner.
Excessive toner cling onto the paper path inside the printer will cause
subsequent printouts to be dirty. Avoid this if possible.
-
Printouts of document with dark background color, especially those produced
for on-screen presentation, are difficult to read and waste printer toner.
It is a good idea to print them in reverse color - in PowerPoint 97's,
there is an option "pure black & white" under the printing dialog box
which does this trick.
-
Please check out the technical
guidelines for using the color laserjets.
Use ONLY transparencies of the brand "HP Transparency film for laserjet
colored" on the colour laser printers. Other brands of transparencies may
melt whilst feeding through the printer and cause hardware damages. Students
feeding through unapproved transparency types will be liable to all damage
costs.