HP Laserjet 4250n and Laserjet 3800dn question

We would like to print a banner or cover page listing the user and
date etc between each print job. This may seem a waste of paper but in
our case we have several users abusing printer usage. These 50 or
more web page print outs are an even bigger waste of paper. No one
admits to being the culprit. I have found news post that mention
telnet, but these seem to be for Unix.
Both printers are on the network with the factiry install network
cards and we use the windows OS.
Please can anyone tell me how to turn this on for each printer? The
boss would really like to put a stop to this and have a pge between
jobs telling who printed it would cause it to stop.
if it cannot be done, please let me know and I will stop searching the
web for an answer. If this is not possilbe, anyone have any
suggestions or solutions they have used that have worked? Besides
firing everyone and hiring new staff?

Thanks,
Linda

In article < .com>,
"" <> wrote:

> We would like to print a banner or cover page listing the user and
> date etc between each print job.

Linda-

Telnet is a communications protocol that can be used with any computer
that has Telnet client software. I'm not sure how that would apply
unless you could use it to connect to each printer and update its
parameters.

Try connecting to each printer's web page with your web browser. Use
its IP address as a URL, as http://192.168.5.3. (I made up that
number!) See if a separator page or cover page is an option. I'm not
aware that it is, but that is how you would activate it in the printer
if it was.

My computer has an option to print a cover page for each print job. You
would have to access each of your user's computers and check that
feature to activate it, if it happens to be available. It is one of the
options in the print dialog of my computer. If it is necessary to check
the box for each print job, then it would only work once!

Fred

"" <> wrote:
>We would like to print a banner or cover page listing the user and
>date etc between each print job. This may seem a waste of paper but in
>our case we have several users abusing printer usage. These 50 or
>more web page print outs are an even bigger waste of paper. No one
>admits to being the culprit. I have found news post that mention
>telnet, but these seem to be for Unix.
>Both printers are on the network with the factiry install network
>cards and we use the windows OS.
>Please can anyone tell me how to turn this on for each printer? The
>boss would really like to put a stop to this and have a pge between
>jobs telling who printed it would cause it to stop.
>if it cannot be done, please let me know and I will stop searching the
>web for an answer. If this is not possilbe, anyone have any
>suggestions or solutions they have used that have worked? Besides
>firing everyone and hiring new staff?
>
>Thanks,
>Linda

Linda
Before you get out the pink slips give HP's Web Jetadmin a try. I have not used
it although coincidentally I will be installing it in a customers site in a
month or two. My understanding is that it allows you to monitor who is printing
what (or who has printed what) amongst other things.
http://h20338.www2.hp.com/hpsub/cach...0-225-121.html
Be aware that it requires 1 Gig of RAM on the computer on which you install it.
It's free so worth a try.
There are other solutions but they are a bit clumsy and can be worked around by
an unscrupulous and technically savvy user. These include setting up the
printer to feed a different coloured page in front of each printout (the 4250
definitely supports this) but you need to have a tray dedicated to that paper
and it would be easy to work around.
If the printouts are for in-house use only you could print a watermark on one
or more pages, you can design a watermark for each user but once again anybody
who has access to their PC printer driver can bypass this, you could always
however remove their ability to modify the driver using Windows permissions,
not my area of expertise but somebody here would be able to help I'm sure.
There are proprietary software solutions by the way, often used in Universities
to monitor printing and other cost centres but I expect they are expensive. Try
Web Jetadmin first and let us know how you get on.
Tony
MS MVP Printing/Imaging

(Following up because I saw a reply. I have Google Groups killfiled as
a huge ongoing source of Usenet spam.)

<> wrote:
> We would like to print a banner or cover page listing the user and
> date etc between each print job. This may seem a waste of paper but in
> our case we have several users abusing printer usage. These 50 or
> more web page print outs are an even bigger waste of paper. No one
> admits to being the culprit.

It's possible that it's actually not a user, but a virus or other
security problem happening on one of the user computers.

> I have found news post that mention telnet, but these seem to be for Unix.

Telnet works fine on Windows, and I'll show the procedure below. But
banner pages only seem to work using lpr/lpd protocol, and most Windows
systems will use port 9100 instead.

Instead, you will probably have to use the Windows driver "Separator
Page":

(For XP)
Go to Start/Settings/Control Panel/Printers And Faxes.
Right-click the printer and select Properties.
Click the Advanced tab.
Click Separator Page.
Enter C:\WINDOWS\system32\pcl.sep
Click OK.

Print jobs will now have a header page that shows their user name
(large) and the date and time.

They'll see this on their next print job. If they are even a little
technical, it's easy to clear (do the above, but clear the filename
box). If they're not technical but also not stupid, they'll stop
printing the 50-page printouts, so you still may not be able to catch
them. Good luck.

As promised above, here's the Telnet procedure:

Using Telnet From Windows To Change JetDirect Banner Settings

You'll need the IP address of the printer. That shows on the
printer self-test page you can print from the printer control panel.

Open a command prompt (Start menu, Run, enter "cmd" [no quotes],
press Enter).

Type "telnet" followed by a space and the printer's IP address:

telnet 192.168.1.250

Press Enter. The printer will show a prompt. Type:

banner:1

This enables banner pages, which show the name of the user that sent
the job. (You can change other settings here, too.)

Press Enter. Type:

exit

Press Enter. The printer will ask:

Save settings?([Y]/N):

Press Y.

--
Warren Block * Rapid City, South Dakota * USA