Printing is one of the biggest issues in College of Design computing. Designers need to print a lot! From B&W reports to large posters and plans, design students are constantly printing. Some of the most frequent questions we receive have to do with printing.

We developed a workshop, Printing 101, which provides information and tips for efficiently printing at the College of Design. Click here for a copy of the handout used in the Printing 101 workshop. (PDF file, Adobe Reader required.) If you're interested in taking the workshop, let someone on the IT staff know and we can schedule a session.

WolfPrint, NC State's accounted printing system, provides printers across campus, including nearly 30 printers for the College of Design IT Labs and Clusters. These range from small B&W printers costing 6¢ per page to large 36" wide color printers costing $1.60 per square foot. Users may purchase print quota online (24/7) at print.ncsu.edu using a credit card or in person from the WolfPrint office in the D. H. Hill Library (weekdays 8:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.). More information is available on the WolfPrint page.

All IT Lab and Cluster computers are already set up to use WolfPrint printers. Students connected to StudioNet may use WolfPrint printers after installing software which gives them access. This software is available for Macintosh and Windows computers.

See Adding WolfPrint Printers on a Mac OS X 10.5 Computer for instructions on installing WolfPrint printers on a Macintosh computer running Mac OS 10.5.

See Adding WolfPrint Printers on a Mac OS X 10.4 Computer for instructions on installing WolfPrint printers on a Macintosh computer running Mac OS 10.4.

See Adding WolfPrint Printers on a Windows Computer for instructions on installing WolfPrint printers on a Windows computer.

A very useful web page is print.ncsu.edu. It allows users to:

• buy print quota online using a credit card
• print over the web
• check their print quota balance
• request a $10 IOU for emergencies
• check printer queues
• report problems

There is also a list of frequently asked questions. Check it out.

A few tips for printing:

Always check the Page Setup or Print Options to be sure your print job is configured properly. Many printing problems can be eliminated by taking a few seconds to make sure you're using the right paper size and orientation, you're sending to the correct printer, etc.

Make sure you have enough print quota to complete your print jobs. Plan ahead!

When sending large print jobs (say, over 10-15 MBs) save your file as a PDF and print it from Adobe Reader. This compresses the file without loss of quality and allows the jobs to print much faster. Our tests have shown jobs print as much as 7 times faster using this method. Many applications let you save directly to PDF format.

Use the printer monitor windows to check the status of your print jobs. On Macintosh computers, a printer icon will appear on the Dock when you print a job. On Windows computers, go to the Start menu to access the Printers directory. Double-click on the printer's name to check the status of your print job. For WolfPrint printers, once a print job has left your computer, the system checks to be sure you have print quota, sends the job to a print queue, which then goes to the printer. Once the job prints, the system sees how many pages were printed and deducts your print quota. You can check the status of a print queue at print.ncsu.edu. Jobs won't appear on print.ncsu.edu until they have left your computer.

If you have questions, please contact the College of Design IT staff in Brooks 202-204 for help. If you have a laptop that you need help with, bring it with you. You can also send an email to design_help@ncsu.edu with specific information about your problem.