Academic and Research Computing

About RCS Public Printers

Networked PostScript printers are located in many places across the campus including the VCC, all the workstation lab/classrooms, and the various Personal Computer labs. There are several kinds of printers, which vary in quality, color, and paper type.

To see a complete list of public RCS printers, choose to view by location or by type of printer:

RCS Printers sorted by location
RCS Printers sorted by printer type

To understand the seemingly cryptic printer names, see Printer Naming Scheme.

For a description of the resolution of the various types of black & white and color printers, see Resolution and Quality

The cost depends on the type of printer and whether it is black & white or color; see the Printing Charges page for information.

Printer Naming Scheme

Printer names on the RCS network are made up of 3 parts, usually {Building}{room}{type}, or {Building}{type}{form}. The short form of the name uses a two character building code, up to four characters for a room, location, or type, and a two character type or form code. There is also a long form of the name that spells out the printer type.

Printer Types and Forms

LW

A black & white, letter-size PostScript laser printer.

BLW

A black & white, B-size (11" x 17") PostScript laser printer.

P3 or Ph3

A Tektronix Phaser 350, 850, or similar color PostScript laser printer that prints on letter-size paper.

LET or OVR

A Tektronix Phaser 750 or similar color PostScript laser printer that prints on letter-size paper. The LET suffix indicates plain (letter) paper, whereas the OVR (overhead) suffix indicates transparencies.

LBLxx

A black & white PostScript laser printer that prints labels. LBL means label; xx indicates number of labels/page.

Generic Printer Names

PS

The default black and white PostScript printer for your location. This printer is used as the default in the "print window" menu selection of applications programs. Alternate name: POSTSCRIPT

 

CPS

The default color PostScript printer. If there is a Tektronix Phaser color printer ($.40/page) in the same room, this will be the default. Otherwise the default will be the Phaser 850 in the VCC (VCPH3LET). Alternate name: COLORPOSTSCRIPT

Printer Resolution and Quality

Black & White Printers

Most of the RCS Black & White public printers have a resolution of 600dpi. Some of the Lexmark models can be set to use 1200dpi.On a PC, you can set the resolution if the correct printer driver is installed; on UNIX, you can include the option -Xdpi=1200 on the lpr command.

The printer in VCC South (vcsolw or vcsoutlw) has an additional paper tray loaded with B-size (11" x 17") paper. On a PC, you can use this option if the correct printer driver is installed. From UNIX systems, you can use this paper size by specifying -Xpaper=b-size on the lpr command.

The printer named vcblw (in the VCC print room) prints on B-size (11" x 17") paper by default.

The VCC printer called vclw is capable of printing single-sided or double-sided output with a resolution of 600dpi. The default is double-sided. On a PC, you can request single-sided if the correct printer driver is installed. On UNIX systems, you can select the onesided option for a given print job by using the -X option on the lpr command. For example, the following command prints the file myfile on only one side of the paper:

        lpr -Pvclw -Xonesided myfile

Refer to Quick Study #16, Printing from RCS, for more lpr printing options for vclw.

Color Printers

Most of the color printers are Tektronix Phaser 850s; their names include the letters "p3" or "ph3". The resolution of these printers is 300dpi, and the print quality is very good.

Note that the Phaser 850 printer named vcph3let is a 2-sided printer, and that vc780b uses B-size (11" x 17") paper. Both these printers are located in the VCC print room.

The Tektronix Phaser 750 printers, such as vc750let, have a resolution of 600dpi and produce output of excellent quality.

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