iSchool and priPrinter Server

I run a small private school help facility in a poor rural area in South Africa.

The aim of the facility is to provide free PC and internet use for school projects seeing as, apart from a small book library run from an old container, we have nothing else in the in the area, yet many of the school projects insist on internet research and printouts for work done.

However, even though the PC and internet use is FREE, the printing is only slightly subsidised, and that by myself and a few friends so we had to find a viable solution to help us provide a level of service such that the students could print as easily as if the printer was attached to their own system, yet allow us to do preliminary checks on the content to prevent duplicate prints, prints with glaring errors as well as accommodate various special printout requests like duplex, N up etc. and more than that, where possible, allow us to fix small errors in the previewer rather than have to get them fixed by the student. After all, most of the subjects have nothing to do with the use of the PC or ensuing software, and being a poor area, most have never worked on a PC before.

We tested a few systems and eventually settled on priPrinter Server due to the following:

It was reliable.
It allowed easy previewing of print jobs as well as allowing us to identify who printed the job so we could go back to help the student where required.
It was very flexible, allowing us to do N up printing etc. which was required for old exam printouts to reduce cost.
The company behind priPrinter server was also always available to listen to our suggestions, so much so that we were surprised when some of them appeared in later editions.
The software also now offers us the ability to NOT only see roughly the percentage of INK used for a print job, but allow us to reduce INK usage by using their built in Ink saving mode. This allows us to offer flexible pricing where the students pay for INK used and not just per page to teach them to think and plan more carefully so they, with the aid of this together with the INK saver mode can help plan their project to fit inside their budget.
Importantly for us, the software also allows us to copy images from the print job, delete original and paste back with the ability to position and resize as required. This is especially useful for very young students who know what they want, but you can see in the preview they do not know how to do it, and you can now call them, find out what they wanted to do and make minor adjustments right in the print previewer making things run more smoothly than if you had to send them back to the PC all the time.
The software was easy to use, period.

These features allow us to, in real time, quickly and efficiently accommodate all the various print jobs from students aged 10 to 18 and above, from primary level right up to college and university, low quality budget orientated as well as high quality printouts, all from within the controls of the one software package.

And this done for as many as 15 to 16 students working at the same time, sending multiple jobs through, all with various requirements and controlled by just one person.

Personally, can’t think how I would run this facility without priPrinter Server any more, got so used to what it offers and how well and consistently it works.