Best Practices for print job delivery in PaperCut Hive and Pocket

PaperCut Pocket and Hive are intended to work right out of the box. However, depending on your network and printers, you may need to adjust some settings to make sure printing works reliably for your users.

Below is proven advice from PaperCut experts to tell you the safest way to set up printing.

Enable the Cloud Node

The Cloud Node allows users to submit print jobs from anywhere—home, cafes, or guest Wi-Fi, and release them later at the office. This is off by default so organizations can decide if printing through the cloud fits their security and data privacy policies.

As a bonus this can also help deliver the print job even if the user accidentally connects to the wrong network, or some other connectivity issue occurs. So we recommend turning it on to improve the user’s experience.

To enable Cloud Printing…
Follow the steps to add the Cloud Node to your Mesh. Note that it can take up to 12 hours for all devices to begin replicating jobs to the cloud.

If you can’t use the Cloud Node…
Users must stay on the company network to print. Ensure port 9264 is open from the user’s device to other nodes in the edge mesh.

Deploy print queues with manufacturer drivers

By default, PaperCut Pocket and Hive deliver print jobs using IPP and local queue delivery which are activated immediately after set up.

However the best, most reliable print delivery protocol isn’t activated right away. In order to use it you have to go to Print Queues and start adding print drivers to deploy to users.

Once drivers are deployed, that unlocks the Raw printing:9100 delivery protocol and PaperCut will use it as the preferred printing wherever possible.

RAW/9100 is the most widely used and supported print protocol across the industry, and its broad adoption makes it the most reliable and feature-rich option available in Hive and Pocket. It also goes by some other names including AppSocket and JetDirect.

As an added benefit, deploying OEM drivers also unlocks manufacturer-specific functionality such as stapling, hole punching, tray selection, and other finishing options depending on what the printer hardware supports.

For step-by-step instructions, see Preparing a printer driver and Creating and deploying print queues.

Plan for Chrome & Mobile Printing

Chromebooks, iOS, and Android devices can submit print jobs in PaperCut Hive, but they come with some important limitations to accomodate.

• These devices can participate in the Edge Mesh as job submitters only — they cannot act as edge nodes to replicate or deliver jobs to printers. This means at least one Windows or macOS machine must be present in the environment to serve as an edge node.
• Additionally, jobs from these devices are always submitted as PDFs and can only be delivered via IPP or local queue delivery so neither of these protocols should be disabled.
• Some printers cannot accept PDF jobs over IPP. In those cases, a local print queue is the only viable delivery path for Chrome and mobile users.

Recommended approach
To reliably support Chrome, Android, and iOS printing, set up a dedicated edge node running the Hive client continuously to relay print jobs. For additional reliability, configure a Print Delivery Profile with dedicated, always-available edge nodes to give jobs a predictable delivery path.

Alternative: Cloud Pull Delivery *(Hive only — Beta)
*For printers running the PaperCut Hive full embedded app,Cloud Pull Delivery is an alternative worth exploring. Keep in mind this feature is currently in Beta and is not yet available for all printer brands.

Proactively check network connectivity

Network issues are one of the most common causes of print delivery failures in PaperCut Hive and Pocket. Proactively validating your network — before deployment and after major changes — can save significant troubleshooting time.

• Run the PaperCut Hive Compatibility Tool - The PaperCut Hive and Pocket Compatibility Toolis a standalone utility that validates your network environment against PaperCut Hive’s requirements. It does not require a PaperCut installation to run.
• Review firewall requirements - For the full list of required URLs and ports, see the Firewall and networking section of the system requirements page which includes a visual diagram.