Still More Things I Learned at the Reference Desk
Have you noticed that the two primary printing options on the "Innovation Lab" computers refer to the same physical printer? Printer M1 and printer C1 are the same printer. Wondered why?
The default, which is M1, refers a print job to mongraphic printing (black-and-white). To get the same printer to print a job -- even the same page -- in color, the user has to change the printer option to C1.
According to Judi, this was done because the Mac's are unable to figure out for themselves that a print job should be in color, while the PC's are. More or less. Thus, all Innovation Lab users now have to make a choice to print in color.
And, yes, this is kind of a step backwards. Before a change was made this summer, the PC's automatically treated color pages as color printing.
Comments
The main problem with having the printer automatically print in color is that if there is color on the first page - let's say a JSTOR logo - then the whole print job counts as color. This means the students are charged color rates for long articles when there is no important color to print. This has been a major problem for many students last year. My preference, and I did request this, is to add a second black and white printer and have this be the default printer. Then students can change to the color printer when they want to print.
Posted by: John T. | September 30, 2009 9:28 AM