Since September 1, 1998, laser printing is available throughout the day in the Run Run Shaw Building Room 103, and the Old Library Building Room 134. Each of these two PC laboratories is equipped with three 24 page/minute black and white laser printers and one 10 page/minute colour laser printer. With the self-service of printout collection and automated payment from the print budget, laser printing is no longer limited to office hours.

Self-service laser printing 

Laser printing now operates in a self-service mode. Users can collect their printout directly from the laser printers themselves and the equivalent number of units for the number of pages printed will be automatically deducted from the users' laser printing budget in their HKUSUA account.

One-time 50 free laser printing units for general accounts on HKUSUA

To use the laser printing service at the Computer Centre's microcomputer laboratories, the user must have a HKUSUA account. At account creation time, each staff or student is allocated 50 free laser printing units.  For existing HKUSUA accounts, the one-time 50 free laser printing units have been added to their account on September 1, 1998.

Laser Printing Budget

The laser printing budget is similar to the laser printing coupon in operation.  Each A4-size black and white page is charged 1 unit while a color page is charged 10 units.

When a user's printing budget is overdrawn, he will not be able to print until he replenishes his printing budget. Users can purchase the laser printing budget at HK$20 for 50 units from the Centre's General Office at Room 223, Run Run Shaw Building or at the Enquiry Counter at Room 134, Old Library Building during office hours.

A bonus of 15 laser printing units will be added to the user's printing budget for each used printing coupon returned to the Computer Centre. When additional budget is purchased, the balance of the printing units is calculated after the overdraft (if any) is deducted. Unused laser printing units are not refundable.

Unused Printing Units on existing Laser Printing Coupons

During the period of September 1, 1998 to December 31, 1998, users can return their laser printing coupons to the Centre's General Office at Room 223, Run Run Shaw Building or the Enquiry Counter at Old Library Building and the number of un-used coupon units will be credited to their laser printing budget.

Collection of Laser Printout

In the Centre's microcomputer laboratories, each laser printer is labelled with its print queue name and each PC or Macintosh workstation is associated with a default print queue. The user should note the name of the print queue to which he has sent his file for printing. He can then go to the laser printer labelled with the respective print queue name to collect his printout. The user should check carefully that the printout is his, and leave other users' printout in the output stack of the laser printer.  Any printout taken by mistake should immediately be returned to the output stack of the respective laser printer.

Disposal of uncollected laser printout

On each laser printer, there is a tray to hold any uncollected printout from that printer. The tray is emptied everyday at 8:30a.m. and uncollected printout from the previous day is placed on a box on top of the laser printer. Uncollected laser printout older than one day is discarded without notice.

Laser Printing Budget Usage Enquiry

A user can enquire about his laser printing budget usage using a web browser at url: "http://web.hku.hk/prtquota.html" and then enter the account name and password of his HKUSUA account. This will display the user's remaining budget and his print history.

Checking the status of a Laser Printing Job in the Laser Print Queue

A user can check the status of his laser printing job in the laser print queue at url: "http://web.hku.hk/LPRng ". Then click the "Show printers in All locations" and then click the required print queue name to display the printer status and all print requests on that printer.

The print requests are processed in sequential order. If there are print requests in the print queue but the printer does not seem to be working, the user can inform our operations staff in the Computer Room at Room 108, Run Run Shaw Building for assistance.

Cancelling a Laser Printing Job

Before a print request is processed by the printer, it is possible to cancel the print request using a web browser at url: http://web.hku.hk/lpqinfo.html. After entering the user's hkusua username and password, then select the name of print queue from the pull down list and select "Check job in queue" to view his queued print jobs or select "Remove all jobs in queue" to delete all submitted print jobs in the selected print queue.
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C.M. Mak
Tel: 2859 2491
E-mail: cmmak@hku.hk