Student Computing Services supports grayscale and color laserjet printing, as well as large-format color inkjet printing within its facilities.

l Laserjet Printing
l Printing from Your Own Laptop
l Large-format Printing

To print black and white, grayscale or color documents on letter (8.5"x11") sized paper, you must first secure a Digital Access Control (DAC) card from one of the Cash-to-Card machines (pictured right) in Cook Library. To purchase a DAC card, you will need a one dollar bill; other forms of currency are not accepted. Once you have a card, you can add value to it as needed from any of the Cash-to-Card machines available in the following locations:

l SCS Lab (CK 35)
l Cook Library Second Floor
l Cook Library Third Floor

Printing costs are ten cents ($0.10) per page for grayscale and one dollar ($1.00) per page for color. So, for example, to print a 15-page paper, you will need at least $1.50 on your DAC card. Printing two pages of color images to attach to the paper will increase your total to $3.50. 

When you print a document from any participating computer, you will be prompted to name the "print job."  Then, the pay-for-print system will hold it in a queue for up to 2 hours. During that time, you can go to any release station, insert your DAC card in the card reader (pictured right), identify yourself and your print job, and pickup your printed document. Color printing must be done from the SCS Service Desk (CK 35) rather than directly from a lab computer.

Release stations are available in following locations:

l SCS Lab (CK Library Room 35)
l Cook Library Second Floor
l Cook Library Third Floor (2 stations)
l Cook Library Fourth Floor
l Cook Library Fifth Floor
l Psychology Building Room 406
 

Printing from Your Own Laptop 

A student may print to the pay-for-print system directly from his own laptop by installing one of the Pharos Popup utilities linked below. The laptop must be connected to either the tu-secure wireless network or the campus wired network.

l Windows
l MacOS
 

Large Format Printing

Student Computing Services maintains an HP DesignJet 500ps large-format inkjet printer which students may use to print poster-sized documents for academic purposes. This printer is not part of our pay-for-print service, and we presently have no practical means of charging. Consequently, we limit poster printing to five 24"x36" sheets--that's 4,320 square inches for those calculating equivalencies--per person per day. We believe that this is a reasonable limit which should help prevent a single user from disproportionally stressing the printer or exhausting printing supplies.

The DesignJet 500ps prints to a 24"-wide roll of paper, so 24"x36" or 24"x48" posters require no trimming or joining and are, consequently, remarkably simple to produce. Students can also produce larger posters (e.g., 48"x36", 72"x48"), which are printed in pieces (or tiles) that they can then trim and join.

Although students may create their large-format documents using any compatible application, SCS strongly recommends using Microsoft Publisher, Microsoft PowerPoint, or some other application that will save in PDF format. Printing PDFs from Adobe Acrobat allows us to tweak print jobs and avoid wasteful surprises. For the convenience of students new to large-format printing, we have posted a number of templates and a production guide on the SCS Self-help Resources page. 

SCS Self-help Resources  
Poster Production Guide for Students (PDF)

Please note:

• SCS does not offer mounting or lamination materials or services

• SCS will not print posters advertising events for student organizations;
  Art Services (UU) offers large-format printing for non-academic purposes

• The uncoated paper we stock is well suited for academic posters,
  but poorly suited for high-resolution "art-quality" prints

• Posters are printed by our staff at the SCS Service Desk (CK 35); if possible, save your document as a high-quality PDF file and bring it in on a flash drive