Printing Reminders - Mid Reviews

Announcement Date
Friday, October 20, 2023 - 3:24

Dear Students,

As mid reviews are in full swing, please follow these basic steps when printing to avoid wasted paper and make sure your jobs are efficiently processed.

  1. Format your file before saving as PDF. Files must be rasterized, flattened, and have links embedded. They should not exceed 300 dpi or be over 500 MB as these are the jobs that will tend to error out when processing. Do the formatting before you send the print job to prevent plotter errors.
  2. Only send files such as TIFFs and PDFs that have been formatted properly and flattened prior to saving. Saving a PDF will not flatten the file or rasterize line work automatically.
  3. Print from the Computer Lab or Print stations to avoid the issues associated with network printing from Laptops. Do not print over wireless.
  4. Save your file to the desktop before sending to the printer and open in Adobe Reader to send.
  5. Do not send file saved in the Downloads folder, external drives/thumb drives, or web pages. Doing so will lead to errors and long wait times!
  6. The IT Staff will keep regular office hours for mid reviews, but we will offer training to students who wish to learn how to change paper and ink independently overnight and on weekends. Please email ithelp@design.upenn.edu to coordinate a training session.
  7. Extra paper and ink will be left out for students to access during nights and weekends. Please make sure you understand the process and have been trained before attempting to change paper on your own.
  8. Email ithelp@design.upenn.edu if you find an issue with a plotter or any other IT equipment while staff is away, this way we will be more prepared to resolve the issue when we next arrive onsite.

*expired ink warning should be ignored. The expiration is on the warranty of the cartridge and not the ink itself. It will not prevent your job from printing.

*send single pages, do not send multipage documents to the plotters.

*watch the outgoing queue from your computer as the job sends. Once it has completed processing from the queue, go to the machine and view the job queue there to make sure your file has processed over.

Reference this document for help formatting your files. https://www.design.upenn.edu/sites/default/files/PDF%20Document%20Prepa…

Thank you and take care!

– Weitzman ITS HelpDesk