Thursday, August 24, 2006

New way to use vendor card printer

With the arrival of new PCs this week across from the circulation desk (specifically, the PCs that require users to stand to use them) comes a new and simpler way to send jobs to the vendor card printer. On these new machines, there is no longer a desktop icon to "activate vendor printer." Here is how users can send print jobs:
  1. User opens browser and logs in with a user name and password (same as before).
  2. There is no more "activate vendor printer" icon to double-click after logging in (this is new).
  3. When user is ready to print a selected document, they must go to the "File>Print" command (same as before).
  4. In the Print dialog box that opens, user selects "vendor card printer" from the choice of two printers (same as before).
  5. Upon clicking "Print" the job is sent to the vendor card printer. No window opens up prompting the user to name the print job and enter a user name (this is new).
  6. User goes to the vendor card printer, inserts copy card, and is prompted to enter a user name. Users must now skip this request by hitting the "Enter" key on the keyboard (this is new, as previously the system required the user to type in a user name).
  7. The user sees a list of all the print jobs sitting in the vendor card printer system (this is new, as previously the user only saw the jobs he/she sent).
  8. User selects his/her job from the list, clicks the "Print" button on the screen, and the cost of the job is debited from the copy card (this is the same).
In case of the PCs where users may sit down (the ones at the carrels), the process of printing is slightly different:
  • for PCs that don't require the user to login to the web browser (the 8 machines behind the reference desk, the ones to the left of the spiral staircase, and 3 or 4 to the right of the staircase), steps 3-8 above still hold true
  • for PCs that do require the user to login to the web browser (the machines at the reference desk and a few of the ones to the right of the staircase by the men's room), the process is mostly the old one. There is still a desktop icon to activate the vendor printer. This icon must be selected after the user logs in to the web. Once the user clicks "Print" to send the job to the vendor card printer, he/she will be asked to name the job and type in a user name. After sending the job, the user can follow steps 6-8.
As the staff from Systems install new PCs in the sit-down locations, the steps to print on those machines will likely become the same as the steps for the stand-up locations. It is probably a good idea to get a copy card and try the system out for yourself to see how it works; that may clarify what I was trying to convey in this long post.

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