Printing

Unfortunately the CS Department can't deduct funds from your signature card. We have a solution in place that allows you to print in the CS department anyway.

Balance

Before you can print you need to put money in your print account. Your CS Department print account is different from the money on your Signature Card. To put money in your CS Department print account you should see the CS Department Secretaries in room 3361. Printing costs 5 cents per page.

You can check your current print balance in two ways:

  • Go to http://accounts.cs.byu.edu. Once you have reviewed the account policies, click okay. Enter your CS username and password into the "Edit your account" box. In the "Account Information" their is a field titled "Print Balance" which lists the amount of money you have in your print account.
  • On the Linux machines you can use the printbalance command from any terminal window.

Both of these methods reports your print balance in cents, rather than in dollars.

If your print balance appears to be incorrect, please see the System Administrators in 1140 TMCB and they will assist with your problem.

Location

You can print from any of the machines in the CS Department Openlabs. Both Linux and Windows machines on the first floor of the TMCB print to the printer located in room 1119. The CS100 lab also prints to the printer in lab 1119. The Linux and Windows machines in the basement of the TMCB print to 1060 TMCB.

Printing problems

Check both printers

Sometimes when your job does not come out of one printer, it is because it is coming out of the printer on the other floor. You should check both printers for your print job. If you find that a job came out of the wrong printer, then please notify the System Administrators so that they can correct the configuration of the machine you used or fix the printer.

Try the command line

Some applications do not print correctly. The Linux PDF viewer xpdf is an example; its print button does not work. If you can not get an application to send a job directly to the printer, then try printing to a ps or pdf file. You can then use the Linux lpr command to print that job from the command line. On Windows, you will have to ssh into a Linux machine to run the command. If you are trying to print a pdf document, you will need to use the Linux pdf2ps converter before printing your file. See man lpr and man pdf2ps for the details. Information on ssh can be found in the "Network Security and Remote Logins" document.

Try another computer

Often, printing problems are machine specific. Try printing from another machine and see if your job completes. You should also try a machine on the other floor so that it tries to use the other printer.

You can print from another machine by using ssh to access a Linux machine in another lab or on another floor. ssh is accessible from the Linux command line and the Windows program menu. Once you are on a Linux machine, you can print from the command line as explained in the previous section. More information on using ssh can be found in the "Network Security and Remote Logins" document.

Please let the System Administrators know what machine did not work so that they can fix the problem.

Notify the System Administrators

If a printer isn't working, you can't print from a specific machine, or a job is taking a really long time, then please notify the System Administrators. Their office is 1140 TMCB, and they can also be reached by email at system@cs.byu.edu. You will need to provide the machine name, and a specific account of what happened.

You can get more information about contacting the System Administrators, along with their current schedule, in the "Getting Help" section of the CS Department Documentation project.

What about the money?

Money should only be deducted from your print account when a job is completed and the paper leaves the printer. If there is a problem, your account shouldn't be charged. If you think that your account was charged erroneously, you should see the System Administrators in 1140 TMCB.