We have made printing services accessible and secure – plenty of MFD printers across our campuses, printing from campus PCs or your personal devices, and no print credits needed.
PaperCut portal
Access the PaperCut portal for the Web Print function (for basic printing via the web), the Mobility Print function (advanced printing from your own device while on campus) as well as a history of your printing and environmental impact.
Web Print is our improved replacement for the i-Print service.
PaperCut: our new printing system
On 4th September the IT Department launched a new printing system called PaperCut. This brings lots of improvements to printing, including:
- A handy app and online portal to help you print from any of your devices, including MacBooks and smartphones.
- Scanning documents directly to your student OneDrive accounts.
- A new Fair Use printing policy. Print what you need when you need it, and say goodbye to print credits!
- Access to a full history of your printing, and how much paper you have used so far. Let’s save some trees!
Click here to view our guide on how to print, copy, and scan.
What is the Fair Use policy?
The ongoing cost-of-living crisis has significantly impacted our students, our staff, and the University as a whole. We want to help where we can.
To ensure that you can access printing when you need it and keep printing sustainably, we have permanently suspended the print credit system for all users and introduced a Fair Use printing policy.
As print credit purchasing is no longer required, we have disabled our old print credit portal (also known as Pcounter).
If you are a student, you will no longer need to buy print credits with your own money.
If you are a member of staff, the cost of printing will be administered by IT. You will no longer need to use departmental cost codes.
Printing credits will serve as an indicator of how much printing can be done and will no longer be shown to users as a monetary value in pounds (£) and pence.
We have assessed how much printing typically happens throughout the year and have programmed our system to give everyone more than enough printing credits to meet demand.
There are still limits in place as part of Fair Use. If you are trying to print a document that is too long (like an entire thesis) then our printing system will notify you by email.
Remember that documents can be split into smaller sections for easier printing, and you can also refer to our tips for economical printing below.
Our printing system does still require that we set a limit of some kind. The system expects us to charge you money, so we had to get creative to find a way around this.
While we are giving more than enough credit to each user for regular printing, we have also assigned everyone an extra credit ‘buffer’.
This means that you will still be able to complete your current printing job if you do print enough to hit a system limit. You will not be required to ‘pay back’ any of this credit buffer – it is there to help you.
If you need to print more than the Fair Use policy allows, you will still be able to request more printing credit from IT, who will assess your ongoing needs and check that your current printing is as economical as possible.
Click here to view IT Service Desk opening hours and contact details.
We must all work together to keep the Fair Use printing system sustainable. Before you print, please consider these printing tips:
- Do you need to print every page of your document? Consider specifying which page ranges to print, to save paper and ink.
- Do you need as many copies? This can be tricky but consider alternatives to printing such as sharing digitally using Teams, Blackboard, or SharePoint (staff).
- Do you need to print in colour? Colour printing is less economical than mono (black and white) printing – if you are printing for your own reference, consider switching to mono printing, removing large pictures from your document before you print, or printing in a lower DPI (Dots Per Inch) quality.
Printing and sustainability
We are committed to our ‘Digital first’ policy in all the academic and professional services we offer. However, we also understand the needs of our students and staff for printing. To merge these two objectives, all printing is set to double-sided and black and white by default. You can manually change these options when sending your files for print.
The PaperCut portal gives you access to your own Environmental Dashboard on the ‘Summary’ page. It uses data visualisation and real-life terms to show you the impact your printing, and the printing at the University, has on our environment.
Check how well you are doing compared to your classmates or the University’s average, and consider if your printing habits can be any more sustainable.
Reprographic Service
If you need something printed in sizes bigger than A3 and/or bound, our Reprographic Team are happy to help.
They can provide the following:
- Comb Binding with PVC Covers the cost £2.00 per book
- Fastback Binding with PVC Covers the cost £2.50 per book
- Poster Printing £4.00 for A2, £5.00 for A1 and £8.00 for A0
Situated in the Ramsey Building, their opening hours are: 9:30am - 12:30pm and 2pm - 4pm (Monday to Thursday), 9am – 12pm and 1:30- 3:30pm (Friday).
For further details or to place an order please email repro@canterbury.ac.uk.