Pull printing

Pull printing is a printing feature where a user's print job is held on a server (server-based pull printing) or on a user's workstation (serverless pull printing) and released by the user at any printing device (pulled to the printer) which supports this feature. A number of software products exist that support pull printing. The user needs to first authenticate themselves at the printer, either using embedded software (e.g. i.c.w. a pincode), or an external device (e.g. i.c.w. a smartcard). Once they have been authenticated, the user may select from the list of print jobs from the server, web portal or directly from the client PC^[1] in the case of a server-less pull printing solution,^[2] which ones they wish to release at the current device. Some systems also allow delegation where the user may access print jobs submitted by other users or systems.

Alternative terminology

• 'HP Access Control' which is a brand of HP.com.^[3]
• 'Print Release' which is used by Lexmark.com.^[4]
• 'FollowMe' printing, which is a trademark of Ringdale.^[5]
• 'Find-Me' printing which is a brand of PaperCut. Software^[6]
• 'Follow-You' printing which is a trademark of Nuance.^[7]
• 'Global Print', which is a trademark of Sepialine.^[8]
• 'MFPsecure' which is a trademark of LRS.^[9]
• 'Personal Printing', which is a trademark of ThinPrint.^[10]
• 'Print Roaming' which is a trademark of Y Soft.^[11]
• 'Release Printing' which is a trademark of PrinterLogic.^[12]
• 'SafeCom Pull Print' which is a trademark of SafeCom.^[13]
• 'ZeroServer' printing, which is a trademark of Celiveo/Jetmobile.^[14]
• 'Secure Release Here' which is a trademark of Pharos Systems International.^[15]
• 'Private Cloud Printing' which is a trademark of e-Paper Ltd.^[16]
• 'Secure Pull Printing' which is used by UniPrint.net.^[17]
• 'Print Anywhere' which is used by Printix.net.^[18]
• 'My Print Anywhere' which is used by uniFLOW.^[19]
• 'Secure Cloud Print management' which is used by Ubiquitech.^[20]
• 'MyQ Printing Solution' which is used by MyQ.^[21]
• 'Secure Print' which is used by Ricoh Company Ltd.^[22]
• 'Follow Print' which is used by Cirrato One.^[23]

Advantages

• Flexibility: The user can print first and choose the printer afterwards (while standing next to it).
• IT management: instead of having to manage hundreds of print queues on print servers and multiple printers on the user desktops there is only one print queue on each user PC.
• Costs and environment: Reduces uncollected paper.
• Green IT: the server-less flavour of pull printing allows the removal of all print servers throughout the company. A widget can show users the environmental impact of printing by showing them the number of trees and amount of CO2 and energy used to deliver a print job. ^[24]
• Security: No more unattended documents on printers output trays, the user must authenticate, increasing privacy policy compliance.
• Accounting: Although this is not really a Pull Printing feature, centralized printing solutions often come with these additional features (e.g. reporting, charging, monitoring).

Disadvantages

• Speed: The user has to wait for the job to be copied and processed from the moment the print job is pulled.
• Costs: Extra licensing and hardware.
• Specialised software may be required on the server and also possibly on the printer.
• Compatibility: The print driver used when the user initially prints must be compatible with all the devices that the user might release their print job to. Some software solutions can perform conversions or a common print driver to negate this requirement.
• Printer Hardware-Specific: Often solutions are only compatible with certain vendor's own hardware; there are however exceptions.

References