PaperCut Scripts

Customise the functionality of your PaperCut installation using scripts.

There are a range of pre-written scripts available within PaperCut if you require more power than PaperCut's in-built filters and restrictions. To make it easy to get started, advanced scripting comes with dozens of pre-written recipes. Looking at these is a great way to understand their power.

We can provide a range of scripts to our customers, please see below a sample of some scripts that are readily available. Simply contact us via the form at end of the page to request a custom script.

 Custom PaperCut Scripts

  • Adds the date, time and name of the user to the bottom of all pages printed by students. This is done by checking if the user is a member of the defined students group.  Watermarking is disabled for staff.

  • To remove "smbrn" from a print job send through cups. as it always prefixes that "smbrn" to print jobs

  • Sometimes, a high price tag just isn't enough to discourage users from printing in Colour. This recipe imposes a fixed limit on the number of Colour pages a user can print per day.

  • The script takes the document name, gets the files extension and then trims it down  to only the extension. If it is a PDF document, then it will convert the job to grayscale.

  • A document size limit is set so that if a document is sent that is too large it will cancel the job and request the user tries to reprint in another, smaller file type

  • When users submit a colour print job a pop-up appears asking "Is this an internal document?" with a "Yes" or "No" option. If "Yes" then the job is forced duplex grayscale. If "No" another pop-up appears asking "Do you need this in colour?" with a "Yes" or "No" option. If "Yes" then the job prints. If "No" then the job is forced duplex.

PaperCut Scripts

  • It's always a good idea to reward good behaviour. This recipe help you implement a campaign to discourage color printing and encourage the use of duplex (double-sided) printing. It will track a user’s usage and if they hit the target of 10 continuous days of printing without using any colour and/or duplex will be rewarded.

  • When using a printer that belongs to the "Science Faculty", users can only use credit from their "Science Quotas" or "Cash" accounts. Users cannot use other faculty quotas on these printers.
    This also demonstrates the use of printer groups to simplify script maintenance.

  • Some organisations have known problem documents such as large spreadsheets that if accidentally printed will print thousands of pages. This recipe will check for a known problem document and alert the user and ask them to confirm their actions.

  • Jobs sent from workstations in a specified subnet are allowed, other jobs are cancelled. This script demonstrates network level restrictions.

  • Adds the date, time and name of the user to the bottom of all pages printed by students. This is done by checking if the user is a member of the defined students group. Watermarking is disabled for staff (users not in the student group).

  • The user is prompted via the a client popup to enter a comment about their print job. This could be used to describe what is being printed or provide a justification for printing.

  • Selected users print very large batch jobs and it's frustrating to have to attend the printer twice: once for release and then again later to collect the job. Selected users will be given the option to print direct bypassing the Hold/Release queue.

  • Users are required to enter a valid approval code to print their job. Approval codes are pre-defined and known only by privileged users, e.g. teachers. Users who do not enter a valid approval code will have their jobs cancelled.

  • During peak hours printers can get very busy. When many users are printing sometimes people pickup other peoples print job resulting in frustration and waste. This recipe enables the hold/release queue during the peak hours of 9:00am to 6:00pm weekdays. When printing at off-peak times, users are not inconvenienced by using a hold/release queue.

  • Implement an organization wide policy to discourage printing of emails in colour. Users printing emails in colour will be informed via the client software of the policy and they will need to confirm their action.

  • Encourage users to print during periods of low activity by offering a discount of 25% during the period before 8:00am and after 6:00pm.

  • Users printing jobs larger than the defined number of pages have their jobs automatically redirected to another printer. This can be used to redirect large jobs from slower or high cost printers to more efficient or faster high volume printers.

  • Reduce the cost per page when print jobs are larger than 100 pages. Any pages above 100 are charged at a 50% discount.

  • If a user sends a print job to a printer that is in error (e.g. offline, paper jam, out of paper) they will be informed via the client tool and given the opportunity to cancel and print to another printer.

  • Enforce a company/corporate print policy designed to reduce toner and save paper by discouraging bad habits. The policy script reminds users to print double-sided and not print emails and web pages in colour. This recipe also demonstrates advanced HTML dialog layout.

  • Users may accidentally (or without thinking) print multi-page documents with many colour pages. When printing jobs with a high number of colour pages (e.g. >20), users will be given a choice to either convert their job to grayscale or cancel it. Users who are not running the client software will have their jobs cancelled automatically. 

  • A user printing a large job is requested to redirect the job to a printer dedicated for large batch printing. Users will be asked to confirm the redirection via the client software. 

  • Users printing jobs with many pages are asked via the client tool whether they meant to print such a large document, giving them the opportunity to cancel. This can be useful for users who forget to enter a page range when printing and instead send the whole document. 

  • By placing a reasonable rate limit on printers during lab times (a rate large enough to support printing of lab work only), you'll ensure the resource is available to all students.The script takes the document name, gets the files extension and then trims it down  to only the extension. If it is a PDF document, then it will convert the job to grayscale.

  • This recipe imposes a fixed limit on the number of colour pages a user can print per day. A colour page quota is a better solution than separate balances for colour and black & white. Separate balances are more confusing (two accounts to manage), and also can lead to waste, as users with no black & white credit remaining will simply revert to colour printing.

  • When printing is charged to a selected shared account (e.g. a school fund-raising group) a discount is applied to the job cost. This also demonstrates the use of the "post account selection hook".

  • IT Department is protective of their new printer and they are keen to catch any non-IT staff using it. If anyone outside of IT is found using the printer, the job should be denied and the IT staff alerted via email of the attempted use.

  • The user is prompted via the a client software popup for the document's security classification. The classification is then associated with the job as a comment for reference and reporting.

  • Sample of a percentage of all jobs printed between a given period checking copyright and attribution. Users are prompted via the client software to see whether someone else holds the copyright to the job they are printing. If so, they are prompted to attribute the work via title and author. This is then recorded in the database so it can be extracted into Microsoft Excel via the CSV Print Job Log export report (stored in Comment field).

  • Hold/release queues allow private and confidential documents to be held and only released when the user has confirmed that they are physically at the device (e.g. authenticated at a release station). Holding all jobs may be a burden on users. This script asks the user if a job is confidential and will only hold these jobs.

  • Implement an organization wide policy to discourage printing of emails. Users printing emails will be informed via the client software of the policy and the print job's environmental impact. Users will need to confirm their action.

  • Staff are charged less for printing than other users. This recipe also demonstrates the use of debug logging.

  • Members of the Students group get free printing to science lab printers during lab time (2:00pm to 5:00pm Mondays).

  • Members of the Students group get free printing to engineering lab printers during lab time (9:00am to 11:00am weekdays).

  • Implement an organization wide policy that no emails should be printed in colour. Often emails contain colour in links or headers that adds no value. This script automatically converts all emails (printed from Outlook) to grayscale.

  • Members of the Students group are only allowed to print up to 100 pages. Jobs larger than this will be cancelled with a notification. This recipe demonstrates group-level restrictions.

  • When jobs with a high number of pages are printed (e.g. >50), users will be asked via the client tool if they would like their job converted to duplex, thereby saving paper. Users who are not running the client tool will have their jobs printed without any changes.

  • If a user attempts to print a large job, educate them with the organisation's "Go Green" initiative. The message displayed adapts to the job's duplex setting.

  • Colour printing is expensive so users should be encouraged to print in grayscale. When a job is colour prompt the user to send the job to a grayscale print queue. Please note: This script does not change the job to grayscale the job may still print in colour on colour printers. 

  • An organisation has a fleet of compatible printers, each with different operating costs. This recipe calculates the cost of the job on the candidate printers and redirects the job to the cheapest with the user's confirmation. 

  • Colour printing is expensive so users should be encouraged to print in grayscale whenever they print in colour. No confirmation is required for grayscale jobs. 

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