March 25th, 2010

PaperCut 10.2 released

Today we've released PaperCut version 10.2, and with it a frequently requested feature: page-level color detection for PCL6 drivers. PaperCut's page-level color detection performs a detailed analysis of print jobs to determine the usage of color on a per-page basis. E.g. when a student prints a 20 page assignment with color on just the front page they will still get the grayscale discount on the other 19 pages. Previously page-level color detection was available on PostScript, PCL5 and HPGL drivers. Now we have added PCL6 / PCLXL to that list. Together this adds up to page-level color detection support for the vast majority of printers in use today.

Another notable feature in this release is quotas for shared accounts. This is a useful feature for those wanting to set up department budgets or cost goals. E.g. A regular payment of $500 per month can be made to the English department account. When the balance dips below $0 the department is over their budget/cost goal, and the reports will make that stick out like a sore thumb!

February 25th, 2010

If (version > 10) { doMore() }

If you are a geek, you'll find that our new 10.1 release contains what is probably the most exciting and highly anticipated feature to date: Advanced Scripting. This feature is targeted squarely at our core audience of system administrators, and is the start of a whole new level of flexibility and functionality.

All scripts are written in JavaScript, the most common and well known scripting language. Don't be fooled however, this kind of scripting has nothing to do with web pages.

The first use of the new advanced scripting feature is to write print scripts - scripts that run when a new print job arrives. Your script can do a whole host of things including checking details of the job and influencing what happens to it. Some examples:

• Displaying a pop-up message if a user forgets to select duplex on large jobs.
• Showing statistics on the environmental impact on large jobs via a fancy popup dialog.
• Prompting the user to confirm large jobs before printing.
• Automatically routing large jobs to more efficient high volume printers.
• ... and much much more!

The user manual contains a new Advanced Scripting chapter that will help to get you started. Happy scripting!

January 28th, 2010

Version 10 for 2010

Version 10.0 of PaperCut is now available, just fitting into our target December-January period for new major versions. This release brings several new features including printer groups and some visual updates to the client tool. The printer groups feature allows printers to be tagged or grouped together for management or reporting purposes. The client tool has had a graphic and GUI effects makeover and now sits nicely with the "glassy" look found in modern operating systems.

The full list of changes can be found in the release histories for PaperCut NG and PaperCut ChargeBack

This release is the start of many new features, major and minor, that will become a part of version 10 in the coming months and throughout the year. Upgrading to version 10 now will entitle you to all current and upcoming features in the 10.x series.

A feature that is scheduled in the next few weeks but fell short of 10.0 is the new advanced scripting interface for print job routing, redirection and conditional client interaction. This feature is undergoing some final polish and testing, and once available will open the door to a wide range of possibilities.

Customers with upgrade assurance may upgrade to version 10.x at any time. For our other customers please see our upgrade policy to determine if you are eligible for a free upgrade.

December 22nd, 2009

PaperCut version 9.8 sees out 2009

The year is at an end, and we have one final release for those wanting to upgrade over the break.

Along with some all-round improvements this release updates PaperCut for better compatibility with the recently released CUPS version 1.4, the print system in Mac OS 10.6 and recent Linux distributions. Although the purpose of the changes in CUPS 1.4 was to improve printing performance they required us to make significant changes in the way we track and control print jobs on the platform. On the surface there are no noticeable differences in the way PaperCut is configured or runs, which is the way we like it. Organizations using CUPS 1.4 should upgrade to version 9.8 of PaperCut for the best compatibility.

The full list of changes can be found in the release histories for PaperCut NG and PaperCut ChargeBack.

Happy holidays and new year,

November 19th, 2009

Refinements in 9.7

After recently adding some major features to PaperCut, such as Web Print and the manager mode pop-up, we've been back to basics, polishing our existing features and improving on the core functionality of PaperCut.

Amongst other features, this release contains support for XPS documents with Web Print, along with many new reports and report filters. Extending on the previous release's User configuration report focusing on configuration of user accounts, this release contains similar configuration reports for groups, printers and shared accounts.

The full list of changes can be found in the release histories for PaperCut NG and PaperCut ChargeBack.

September 15th, 2009

9.6 Satisfies 896 Votes

In the latest round of our Vote for a Feature survey we've received thousands of votes. Thanks to all those who have contributed. We've listened to your feedback and polished off the top two most requested features:

1. Driver-less printing for wireless clients
   Version 9.6 introduces a new solution to help manage wireless and laptop printing: Web Print. Web Print allows users to print by simply uploading documents using a standard web browser. No client software or driver installation is required. Web Print provides a simple way to enable printing for laptop, wireless and anonymous users without the overhead of installing printer drivers and managing server authentication.
   
2. Renaming printers
   Printers can now be renamed via the admin interface. This can be useful after renaming a print queue in the OS or after migrating a print queue to a new system.

Another highly requested feature added in this release is print job refund management. If a user finds that some or all of their job wasn't printed, e.g. due to a paper jam or toner problem, they can now easily request a refund via the user web interface. Administrators can be notified of pending refund requests via email and attend to them via the admin interface.

Remember your votes count so keep the feedback coming! As always the full list of changes can be found in the release history for PaperCut NG or PaperCut ChargeBack.

June 25th, 2009

Version 9.5 Released

We have just released PaperCut version 9.5. A full list of changes in this release can be found in the release notes for PaperCut NG or PaperCut ChargeBack. It's enormous, we know :)

Being almost two months since our last release this version brings plenty of new features. In this release we've added a lot of features that were suggested via our feature survey (which you can find on the About tab under Product News), and several that were added as part of our Adopt a Feature Program. The features added are varied and enhance or add functionality to almost every area of the application.

We'd like to highlight one new feature in particular: the manager mode pop-up. This client pop-up allows authorized users to perform printing on behalf of other users. This makes it ideal for use in print rooms at schools/colleges. Print rooms often provide additional services like binding, laminating and stapling, so we've also added cost adjustments (a revised version of our existing charge rates functionality) that allows specifying additional predefined costs, e.g. "$3.00 extra for binding". There is a screenshot of the manager mode pop-up in the PaperCut NG product tour here.

April 29th, 2009

Version 9.4 Released

PaperCut version 9.4 is now available. A full list of changes in this release can be found in the release notes for PaperCut NG or PaperCut ChargeBack.

This release marks the addition of native 64 bit (x64) support for Linux and Novell OES2 Linux.

For Novell OES2 Linux users this means that 64 bit installations are now fully supported.

For users of other Linux distributions this means that there is no longer a requirement to have 32 bit compatibility libraries installed. Native 64 bit support also pushes the performance and scalability of PaperCut on Linux to new levels.

We had planned native support for 64 bit architectures ever since our re-write of PaperCut in 2005. This meant that the actual development required was only about a week for a single developer. If only all the printer manufacturers had the same passion for supporting new platforms and architectures in their printer drivers!

Rumour has it that 128 bit support won't be required for at least the next millenium, so this should be the only major architecture change for some time!

April 16th, 2009

Version 9.3 Released

Today we released PaperCut version 9.3. A full list of changes in this release can be found in the release notes for PaperCut NG or PaperCut ChargeBack.

This release contains many smaller changes that have been requested over time by our customers. To have your say about which features we should be working on for the next release please fill out our Vote for a Feature survey. To find it, log into PaperCut as an admin user, click on the About tab, then click Vote now and have your say under Application News.

February 13th, 2009

Now you can calculate your PaperCut ROI
PaperCut software is proud to announce the availablity of their Return on Investment (ROI) calculator. This is not a new product, it is a free tool that you can use to estimate how long it will take to recover the cost of your PaperCut purchase through savings of printing consumables. It also calculates your current printing cost based on your estimation of usage and shows you the environmental impact of your reduced printing.

The calculator is easy to use with dynamic recalculation for convenient "what if" scenario comparisons. To use the calculator you will need to have estimates for the number of users, average number of pages printed per day and estimated cost per page for color and black and white printing. The information is displayed in graphical format for easy comparison.

Product Manager Rick Phipps says "ROI is a term that always surfaces in challenging economic times, and for good reason. Purchasing technology that can pay for itself in a reasonably short period of time is virtually budget neutral. In addition a product with a good ROI continues to produce savings after the initial investment is retired".

See how much you can save with the online ROI calculator now.

If you would like to try the free 40 day trial version of PaperCut you can download it from the download page.

The PaperCut Development Team

February 12th, 2009

Version 9.2 Released
Today we released PaperCut version 9.2. A full list of changes in this release can be found in the release notes for PaperCut NG or PaperCut ChargeBack.

The PaperCut Development Team

January 27th, 2009

Version 9.1 Released
Today we released PaperCut version 9.1. A full list of changes in this release can be found in the release notes for PaperCut NG or PaperCut ChargeBack.

The PaperCut Development Team

January 6th, 2009

Version 9.0 Final Now Available
After just a few minor fixes and improvements since the release candidates the final releases of PaperCut NG 9.0 and PaperCut ChargeBack 9.0 are now available.

The full details covering what is new since 8.5 are covered in the release candidate news post and release histories (PaperCut NG, PaperCut ChargeBack).

Be sure to see the release history for special notes about licensing (e.g. upgrading from version 8.x), the database upgrade, and a special note for customers with payment gateway modules.

The PaperCut Development Team

December 22nd, 2008

Version 9.0 Release Candidate Now Available
We're happy to announce version 9.0 of PaperCut, a milestone and our 10th year anniversary release. As most would know, we have a release often policy and add many new features in minor point releases, although we do like to throw in at least one exciting new feature in a major release. Version 9.0 is no exception and includes plenty of new festive season goodies including find me printing, load balancing, and toner level detection and alerts.

Many of these features will benefit sites with large printer fleets. The toner level detection and alert feature will help schedule printer supplies purchasing and avoid getting caught off guard with no toner left in the printer. Nothing makes life easier than a friendly reminder email in your inbox!

Load balancing can be used to distribute the workload amongst a set of identical printers located in the same room, helping reduce turnaround time and distributing wear and tear among the print fleet.

The new find me printing feature is ideal for organizations currently utilizing print release stations. It solves many of the problems of printer selection. Instead of the user having to select the printer at the time of print, they can print to a single general global queue instead. When the job is released at the release station the system will automatically select the closest most appropriate printer. No more need to understand cryptic printer naming conventions, just find the closest printer and your job will find you!

These major features are also complemented with our usual smaller but no less important additions including support for new printer models and printing languages, new reports and report settings. Version 9.0 also lives up to our commitment of cross platform support. With Novell recently joining the ranks of officially supported platforms, PaperCut now works equally well on all four major server operating environments.

Version 9.0 is currently in release candidate mode, meaning customers are invited to download and evaluate the application in their environment and run testing scenarios according to their needs. The official release is scheduled for the week starting January 5th. System administrators looking to take advantage of some of the new features are advised to set aside some time for this upgrade.

(release candidate download links removed as the final release is now available)

In the meantime we'll be working on 9.1 for which a number of features have been planned already. Stay tuned to this channel!

The PaperCut Development Team

October 22nd, 2008

With sugar on top
Version 8.5 was released today and we've light-heartedly named it "sugar on top" because it contains lots of small eye candy and fun new features. Highlights include a new mobile/iPhone interface, a set of Vista Sidebar Gadgets and intranet web widgets for reporting users' balance and environmental impact, Mac Growl support, and new set of AJAX APIs for web developers.

Most of these fun features were developed as part of our "Friday Projects" initiative. Many people my be familiar with Google's "20% time" policy where employees are able to spend 20% of their time on projects of their own choice. We've decided to experiment with a similar concept at PaperCut. Each Friday we all jump on a project/technology we find interesting. The result is lots of fun development and what we hope are interesting and innovative new features in PaperCut. We hope you enjoy them and of course if you have any ideas of your own that you think we'd find "fun on Friday", then please email them through - the more technical the better!

Of course we've also continued to improved in the less "fun" but equally important areas such as new reports, hardware support and of course bug squashing. Please check out the release notes for PaperCut NG or PaperCut ChargeBack for full details.

Vista Sidebar Gadget balance Vista Sidebar Gadget environmental impact

mobile user web interface from an iPhone

The PaperCut Development Team

September 19th, 2008

PaperCut finalists in the Telstra Business Awards
We're very proud to announce that we've been made state finalists in the Telstra Business Awards 2008.

It's a great honor be a finalist amongst so many other great companies in the country's most prestigious business awards. It is recognition of all the hard work the PaperCut team has put into developing a great product and providing great support to our customers world-wide.

Running a business is hard work, and you don't often get time to reflect on the how far we've come and what we've achieved. These awards have allowed us to do that, and be proud of these achievements.

The winners will be announced at a formal dinner tonight (19th September 2008). The whole team and partners are coming along. It should be a fun and exciting night. Wish us luck!!

The PaperCut Development Team

Auguest 7th, 2008

PaperCut now on Novell
Print quota, accounting, logging and management is now here for Novell Open Enterprise Server (OES) Linux!

PaperCut has long been a cross-platform solution supporting Windows, Mac and Linux/CUPS. Novell iPrint was the one big missing hole in our cross-platform objectives. After a few late nights, a lot of coffee, and some help from Devon and Dean on the iPrint team, we now have PaperCut running on OES Linux.

More details about the new Novell iPrint release can be found here.

This release also marks version 8.4, so support for Novell iPrint isn't the only new feature we've added. In fact, head over to the release history for PaperCut NG or PaperCut ChargeBack and you'll find over forty other new features, enhancements and fixes.

The PaperCut Development Team

November 17th, 2006

PaperCut NG 7.0 released!

After around fifteen months of heavy development on PaperCut NG, we are happy to announce that it is ready for its next major release - version 7.0!

This release includes some big new features (as one would expect!), including:

• The first public release of the Internet Control module

  This in an optional module that allows quota and control of 'the other major network resource' - internet usage. See the the Internet Control Tour page and the User Guide for more information.

  The Internet Control module has been in testing for the last 3 months, and is a re-write of Internet Control for PaperCut Quota, which has been used by many organizations for years.

• The first public release of PaperCut NG for Mac OS X

  PaperCut NG for Mac OS X has been in testing for the last 6 months, and we've had a lot of great feedback along the way.

• Page-level color detection

  PaperCut NG now has the ability to determine the number of grayscale/color pages in a document on most PostScript, PCL5 and HPGL printer drivers.

  For example, a user prints a 21 page document to a color printer. The document is all grayscale except for a color header on the first page. When using standard color detection, the user is charged for 21 pages at the color printer's standard rate. When using page-level color detection, the user would be charged for one page at the color printer's standard rate, and receive the grayscale discount for the other 20 pages.

  More information about page-level color detection and how to enable it is available in the user guide.

• Many more features since 6.0

  Some of the highlights include:

  • Release stations
  • The Linux and Mac server versions
  • LDAP authentication
  • Support for even more printers
  • Many new reports
  • Improvements to the XML web services API and the server-command tool
  • Our really nice documentation and knowledge base
  • Improved support for unauthenticated print queues and generic/local logons
  • Many improvements to the user client tool

  Check the release history for a full list of changes.

  This is a new major release of PaperCut NG. As usual, premium support customers receive the upgrade for free. Additionally, if you have purchased PaperCut NG less than 3 months before version 7 was released, your existing license will continue to work with PaperCut NG 7. Otherwise, there is a small upgrade fee (which is between 20% and 30% of the purchase price, in line with our upgrade policy). You can purchase a license upgrade via our online order system.

The PaperCut Development Team

October 13st, 2006

PaperCut NG 6.3 released!
Today we're proud to announce the release of PaperCut NG 6.3. This release includes a number of great improvements we've been working on for the past few months.

The major changes in this release include:

• Many new reports to help organizations better understand print usage.
• Addition of new print filters to provide more flexibility for controlling printer use.
• Improved searching of historical print logs, allowing searching by print status and denied reasons.
• Improved support for a variety of printer hardware.
• Enhanced LDAP support.
• Improved support for unauthenticated printing environments.
• and much more ...

Visit the PaperCut NG release history page for a detailed list of changes in this and previous releases.

We recommend all existing PaperCut NG users upgrade to this release. Instructions for downloading and upgrading can be found in our Upgrading PaperCut NG article.

The PaperCut Development Team

October 4th, 2006

More Success for PaperCut NG
We've had some big organizations deploy PaperCut NG lately, helping to prove its suitability for environments and networks of all types and sizes.

Some of the highlights include:

• A state-wide license in Victoria, Australia for theDepartment of Education & Training?

  DE&T are deploying PaperCut as part of their EduPaSS system, a custom Linux distribution for use in 2000+ schools across Victoria. They will be making extensive use of the Internet Control moduleembedded in their Linux distribution. We're excited to be working with the department on a world-leading Linux project.

• A clustered deployment acrossHarvard University?

  We have just finished working with the team at Harvard deploying PaperCut in a clustered server environment. It has been an interesting project as PaperCut has been integrated with e-commerce and student management systems using our XML web services and extension system.

• In the commercial sector, PaperCut has also been deployed recently at a number of banks.

  It's always challenging working with the IT departments in banks because of their conservative and security-focused mindset. PaperCut has been designed to meet these requirements and it's nice to see a number of commercial organizations realizing this. One such organization isBendigo Bank, who have deployed PaperCut across their branch offices.

• We're also pleased to have assisted the well known charity World Vision?

  World Vision have made use of our developing world license, deploying PaperCut NG at several locations across Africa.

It's good to have some local organizations taking notice after the successes of PaperCut NG worldwide! We've also heard that one of our leading resellers (who sells PaperCut NG under a different brand) has won a significant education software excellence award in the USA.

The PaperCut Sales & Development Teams

September 1st, 2006

PaperCut NG Internet Control Module
The PaperCut Development Team is proud to announce the first release of PaperCut NG Internet Control module. This release allows administrators to monitor and quota Internet use on a network, by integrating with the organization's existing Web proxy server. It includes support for the most common proxy servers on both Windows and Linux environments.

Many organizations have already signed up to the Internet Control testing program. We're hoping that the public release will help attract more testers. Please see the Internet Control testing program for further information.

The PaperCut Development Team

May 18th, 2006

New ordering system goes live!
We have just gone live with our new online ordering system. With the success of PaperCut NG we've had trouble keeping up with all the orders. So we needed to streamline the order process.

In addition to helping us, the new order system provides a number of advantages to our customers. Including:

• The option to pay via credit-card through PayPal.
• Invoice ordering (without having to arrange an invoice via email).
• Product price lists are now available in most major currencies (USD, GBP, EUR, AUD, CAD).

We also now accept credit card payments via PayPal which provides our customers with even more purchasing flexibility.

If you encounter any problems with the new system, please send us an email to sales@apposite.com.hk.

The PaperCut Development Team

May 5th, 2006

PaperCut NG on Macintosh
The PaperCut Development Team is proud to announce the first release of PaperCut NG on Mac. This is the first release targeting Mac servers. It's fully functional and contains all the same features as the Windows and Linux versions. 30 organizations have already signed up to the Mac testing program. We’re hoping that the public release will help attract more testers. Please see the Mac testing program page for further information.

The PaperCut Development Team

May 1st, 2006

PaperCut NG moving full forward!
PaperCut NG sales have been rocketing ahead. We've had our best quater ever with most of the growth coming from larger PaperCut NG sites, particularly University and district-wide licenses in the education sector. Highlights include:

• 25,000+ users install at Florida Community Colleges, USA
• 20,000+ users at Mukilteo School District, USA
• Region-wide deployment at all schools in Dumfries and Galloway county, Scotland, UK
• Four significant district-wide licensing arrangements covering schools in England, Canada and West Indies
• A challenging campus-wide deployment running on clustered Linux servers at Sheridan College Institute of Technology in Canada

Over the last two months we've also had a many more university join the ranks and start implementing PaperCut NG. Many of these large organizations such as the University of Louisiana have only just started their implementations, while others such as Politecnico di Torino in Italy and Goucher College are well progressed and have even help the development team with tasks such as language translations and feature development.

The PaperCut Development Team

April 28th, 2006

PaperCut NG now available in Italian and Portuguese
Just a quick post to thank teams responsible for our Italian and Portuguese language translations. PaperCut NG 6.2 and onwards will include these translations. A number of other tranlsations are currently in progress and should be complete soon.

The PaperCut Development Team

March 31st, 2006

PaperCut NG 6.2 released!
Today we're proud to announce the release of PaperCut NG 6.2 for both Windows and Linux servers. This release includes a number of great improvements we've been working on for the past few months.

The major changes in this release include:

• Add support for Print Release Stations
• Add user-level overrides of printer settings. Individual users can now:
  • Be charged at a different rate for printing
  • Bypass printer level filters
  • Bypass the use of release stations
• Add documentation to describe how to configure PaperCut for a variety of common usage scenarios
• Improvements to simplify the automate the installation and configuration of secondary servers
• and much more ...

Visit the PaperCut NG release history page for a detailed list of changes in this and previous releases.

We recommend all existing PaperCut NG users upgrade to this release. Instructions for downloading and upgrading can be found in our Upgrading PaperCut NG article.

The PaperCut Development Team

February 8th, 2006

PaperCut NG 6.1 released!
Today we're proud to announce the release of PaperCut NG 6.1 for both Windows and Linux servers. This release includes a number of great improvements we've been working on for the past few months.

The major changes in this release include:

• LDAP support for both user/group synchronization and authentication which allows for improved integration with non-Windows platforms like Novell and Unix
• Allow print jobs to be associated with Shared Accounts but charge the job to user's personal account. This allows for user-based quotas, whilst still allocating to Shared Accounts for reporting
• Improved print popup speed in User Client
• Greatly improved scalability when running the User Client on thousands of workstations simultaneously
• Reduce the bandwith used by the User Client by approximately 80%
• Web services interface to allow process automation and integration with other systems
• Improve UNICODE support for non English languages
• and much more ...

Visit the PaperCut NG release history page for a detailed list of changes in this and previous releases.

We recommend all existing PaperCut NG users upgrade to this release. Instructions for downloading and upgrading can be found in our Upgrading PaperCut NG article.

The PaperCut Development Team

November 24th, 2005

PaperCut on Linux is here!
Today is the official launch of our first Linux version of PaperCut. Over the past 6 years, the PaperCut Software development team have used Linux internally for tasks such as web serving, mail hosting and development. We've always wanted to offer PaperCut on Linux and after 6 years, thousands of hours of development, and hundreds of thousands of lines of code, it's finally here!

PaperCut NG on Linux now gives our users an extra platform option, and importantly a way to save money by avoiding Microsoft server licensing costs. PaperCut NG on Linux offers exactly the same features and benefits as the Windows version.

The PaperCut development team looks forward to working with the Linux user community.

Visit the PaperCut NG page for more information.

The PaperCut Development Team

October 18th, 2005

• A charge rates area in the web tools interface allowing your end-users see the costs assigned to printers and the internet.
• A customizable winpopup notification can now be sent after every print job.
• Improved printer hardware support
• Scripts to facilitate adjustment of user's credit - great for customizations and integration with online payment systems.
• Automated the installation of the web tool interface.
• and much more ...

The PaperCut Development Team

September 30th, 2005

PaperCut NG - The new addition to the PaperCut family
PaperCut NG, our "next generation" edition was released today. After 18 months development and a busy month of testing we've finally approved the application for release. Thanks to all the organizations that have worked with us over the last year to test, provide feedback and assist us with design.

If you're interested in finding out more about PaperCut NG, the product tour is a good place to start. Lots of screen-shots and new Flash animated demonstrations!

The PaperCut Development Team

August 23rd, 2005

If you're interested in getting your hands on PaperCut NG now, please sign up for the beta program!

The PaperCut Development Team