Suggested Setups

QView can be used for several computer lab or office situations. While the following list of suggested setups are common, you are not limited to the examples provided in this section.

Charging for printing with vending cards:

Some computer networks install card readers on printers to charge for printing. This method of print charging works well if the system is not used by many people. If a print job is placed in the queue and the user does not insert their print card, the job may wait in the print queue until someone else inserts their card. Expecting to receive their print, the second user will be charged for the first user's print, and will not receive their own job. In a network where the print queues always have jobs pending, QView Pro can be a great benefit.

To assist in this setup, one can provide a machine equipped with QView Pro near the printers. QView can be configured to place each print job on hold as it enters the print queues. Users can then unhold their job when they have their print card inserted in the printer. This will allow everyone's print job to be queued but it eliminates the confusion of who's job is ready to be printed.

QView could also be set to remove jobs that are over 15 minutes old. This would keep the print queue clear of old print jobs that users had printed and forgotten about.

Charging for printing with a lab monitor:

Student computer labs on a tight budget may want to charge for printing, but might not want to invest in the cost of vending card readers on their printers. QView Pro can also be a useful tool in this situation.

To charge for printing, one can set up two print queues. The first of these queues could be accessible to everyone. Using Pconsole, a supervisor can set the first queue's 'queue users' list to include the group 'everyone'. This queue would not have any printers attached. The second queue would only be accessible to the QVIEW_OPERATORS user group, and only the lab monitor would be a member of this group.

When a user prints, the job would be spooled to the first queue where it would wait. The user would then ask the lab monitor to print the queued job. The monitor would use Qview Pro to move the print job from the first queue to the second queue, and take payment from the user.

Alleviate the question "Where is my print job?":

Many large computer networks have several printers servicing many print queues. Supervisors or lab monitors may be plagued with users asking about the status of their print jobs. Dedicating a computer near the printers can help reduce the number of questions asked. Users can check for their print jobs in several queues at once without having to be instructed on the use of programs such as Pconsole.

Save paper - Remove duplicates:

Often, using a photo copier is faster and more economical that printing many copies of a document. QView Pro can be used to encourage users to make use of photo copiers rather than printing multiple copies. A supervisor can configure QView to monitor print queues for duplicate print jobs. When a duplicate is found, QView can remove the second copy and send a message to the user suggesting that they use another method of making copies.