How do I apply printer filters based on group membership?

PaperCut applies filters and costs on a per printer basis. These settings are global and affect all users of the selected printer. PaperCut NG offers the option to apply filters to restricted users only.

Some organization may wish to apply filters to printers that apply to a selected group or groups of users and not to others. PaperCut NG will introduce group based filter option in an up coming release. In the meantime there are two methods to implement different levels of printer access:

Scenario A: Restricted vs. Unrestricted users

A school would like to apply a filter on printers so students are limited to a maximum document size of 30 pages. This will prevent one student from holding up the print queue for an extended period of time. They would however like staff members access to unlimited pages on the same printer.

In this school, the staff member's accounts are set to Unrestricted. By Enabling the option Only apply filters to restricted users the filter rules will not be applied to staff.

Scenario B: Group based control

A school has recently purchased a new high-end color laser printer. They would like to allow senior students to print in full color, while other students should be limited to black and white only.

This can be accomplished by with the following implementation method:

1. Install the printer drivers on the server twice. Call the first printer "Color printing (senior students only)" and the other "Black and White printer", or equivalent. With this setup you'll have two logical printers pointing to the same physical printer.
2. Set standard group based access permissions so only senior students can access the color printer.
3. Inside PaperCut, apply filters so only black and white (grayscale) documents are allowed on the black and white printer only.

With this setup, only senior students have access full color printing.

Note: PaperCut NG will include group based filter rules in a future release. Until this time, the above solution will offer the control required.

keywords: colour, restrict access to color, groups

Categories: Filters