Pull printing

Pull Printing is a printing feature where a user's print job is held on a server or on a user's workstation and released by the user at any printing device (pulled to the printer) which supports this feature. A number of software products exist that support Pull Printing. The user needs to first authenticate themselves at the printer, either using embedded software (e.g. i.c.w. a pincode), or an external device (e.g. i.c.w. a smartcard). Once they have been authenticated, the user may select from the list of print jobs from the server, web portal or directly from the client PC^[1] in the case of a server-less pull printing solution,^[2] which ones they wish to release at the current device. Some systems also allow delegation where the user may access print jobs submitted by other users or systems.

Alternative Terminology

'FollowMe' printing, which is a trademark of Ringdale.^[3]
'Find-Me' printing which is a brand of PaperCut Software^[4]
'Follow-You' printing which is a trademark of Nuance^[5]
'Global Print', which is a trademark of Sepialine. ^[6]
'MFPsecure' which is a trademark of LRS^[7]
'Personal Printing', which is a trademark of ThinPrint. ^[8]
'Print Roaming' which is a trademark of Y Soft^[9]
'Release Printing' which is a trademark of PrinterLogic^[10]
'SafeCom Pull Print' which is a trademark of SafeCom^[11]
'ZeroServer' printing, which is a trademark of Celiveo/Jetmobile^[12]
'Secure Release Here' which is a trademark of Pharos Systems International^[13]
'Private Cloud Printing' which is a trademark of e-Paper Ltd.^[14]
'Secure Pull Printing' which is used by UniPrint.net.^[15]
'Freedom Print' which is used by Printix.net.^[16]

Advantages

Flexibility: The user can print first and choose the printer afterward (while standing next to it).
Costs and environment: Reduces uncollected paper.
Security: The user must authenticate, increasing privacy policy compliance.
Accounting: Although this is not really a Pull Printing feature, centralized printing solutions often come with these additional features (e.g. reporting, charging, monitoring).
Management: Using a central Web-based server decreases need for IT resources.
Serverless: when possible, print jobs retention on client PCs and autonomous printers remove the need for any print server or server application, a significant source of savings for organizations with lots of branch offices

Disadvantages

Speed: The user has to wait for the job to be copied and processed from the moment the print job is pulled.
Costs: Extra licensing and hardware.
Specialised software may be required on the server and also possibly on the printer.
Compatibility: The print driver used when the user initially prints must be compatible with all the devices that the user might release their print job on. Some software solutions, can perform conversions or a common print driver to negate this requirement.
Printer Hardware-Specific: Often solutions are only compatible with certain vendor's own hardware; there are however exceptions.

References

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Wednesday, April 06, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.