We have a computer lab that we need to reduce wasted paper/ wasteful printing. This is a open use student lab for students (no user accounts). Often times students will erroneously print the same thing 2 or 3 times, or print long PowerPoint presentations 1 slide per page with a black background. Some will print chapters of books.
Previously we had all the computers set to print directly to the printers. We then set the printers to print to the lab monitors computer, that sharing the printers. The lab monitor would watch the print jobs in the Windows printer queue manager. They can sometimes catch large jobs being printed, but often can not catch small duplicate jobs and some print jobs get printed but never claimed. I tried writing a small c# app that pauses all print jobs, but that would always mess up; things like powerpoints and pdf's would print garbage.
We have looked at print release station software but the ones we have seen are outside our budget. If anyone has any experience or tips on how to help curb printer usage please advise.
