Latest PaperCut News
December 22nd, 2008
We're happy to announce version 9.0 of PaperCut, a milestone and our 10th year anniversary release. As most would know, we have a release often policy and add many new features in minor point releases, although we do like to throw in at least one exciting new feature in a major release. Version 9.0 is no exception and includes plenty of new festive season goodies including find me printing, load balancing, and toner level detection and alerts.
Many of these features will benefit sites with large printer fleets. The toner level detection and alert feature will help schedule printer supplies purchasing and avoid getting caught off guard with no toner left in the printer. Nothing makes life easier than a friendly reminder email in your inbox!
Load balancing can be used to distribute the workload amongst a set of identical printers located in the same room, helping reduce turnaround time and distributing wear and tear among the print fleet.
The new find me printing feature is ideal for organizations currently utilizing print release stations. It solves many of the problems of printer selection. Instead of the user having to select the printer at the time of print, they can print to a single general global queue instead. When the job is released at the release station the system will automatically select the closest most appropriate printer. No more need to understand cryptic printer naming conventions, just find the closest printer and your job will find you!
These major features are also complemented with our usual smaller but no less important additions including support for new printer models and printing languages, new reports and report settings. Version 9.0 also lives up to our commitment of cross platform support. With Novell recently joining the ranks of officially supported platforms, PaperCut now works equally well on all four major server operating environments.
Version 9.0 is currently in release candidate mode, meaning customers are invited to download and evaluate the application in their environment and run testing scenarios according to their needs. The official release is scheduled for the week starting January 5th. System administrators looking to take advantage of some of the new features are advised to set aside some time for this upgrade.
The release candidate may be downloaded here:
In the meantime we'll be working on 9.1 for which a number of features have been planned already. Stay tuned to this channel!
October 22nd, 2008
Version 8.5 was released today and we've light-heartedly named it "sugar on top" because it contains lots of small eye candy and fun new features. Highlights include a new mobile/iPhone interface, a set of Vista Sidebar Gadgets and intranet web widgets for reporting users' balance and environmental impact, Mac Growl support, and new set of AJAX APIs for web developers.
Most of these fun features were developed as part of our "Friday Projects" initiative. Many people my be familiar with Google's "20% time" policy where employees are able to spend 20% of their time on projects of their own choice. We've decided to experiment with a similar concept at PaperCut. Each Friday we all jump on a project/technology we find interesting. The result is lots of fun development and what we hope are interesting and innovative new features in PaperCut. We hope you enjoy them and of course if you have any ideas of your own that you think we'd find "fun on Friday", then please email them through - the more technical the better!
Of course we've also continued to improved in the less "fun" but equally important areas such as new reports, hardware support and of course bug squashing. Please check out the release notes for PaperCut NG or PaperCut ChargeBack for full details.
Vista Sidebar Gadget
balance |
mobile user web interface
from an iPhone |
Vista Sidebar Gadget
environmental impact |
September 19th, 2008
We're very proud to announce that we've been made state finalists in the Telstra Business Awards 2008.
It's a great honor be a finalist amongst so many other great companies in the country's most prestigious business awards. It is recognition of all the hard work the PaperCut team has put into developing a great product and providing great support to our customers world-wide.
Running a business is hard work, and you don't often get time to reflect on the how far we've come and what we've achieved. These awards have allowed us to do that, and be proud of these achievements.
The winners will be announced at a formal dinner tonight (19th September 2008). The whole team and partners are coming along. It should be a fun and exciting night. Wish us luck!!
PS: We'll post some photos of the night on the blog next week.
August 7th, 2008
Print quota, accounting, logging and management is now here for Novell Open Enterprise Server (OES) Linux!
PaperCut has long been a cross-platform solution supporting Windows, Mac and Linux/CUPS. Novell iPrint was the one big missing hole in our cross-platform objectives. After a few late nights, a lot of coffee, and some help from Devon and Dean on the iPrint team, we now have PaperCut running on OES Linux.
More details about the new Novell iPrint release can be found here.
This release also marks version 8.4, so support for Novell iPrint isn't the only new feature we've added. In fact, head over to the release history for PaperCut NG or PaperCut ChargeBack and you'll find over forty other new features, enhancements and fixes.
June 4th, 2008
PaperCut's pricing has been very consistent over the last 8 years. Since 1999 we have only updated our prices 3 times and haven't made changes since 2005. Given the large movements in currency exchange rates and the time since the last change, we felt it was time for a review. We do not make pricing changes lightly, as it impacts both our customers and resellers. It also causes a lot of work for us! :)
If you are planning on purchasing, now is a great time to place the order. You can take advantage of the current price. We'll be honoring all quotations up until the start of July when the new pricing goes live.
In addition to minor pricing changes, we're planning to stream-line our online ordering processes. For example, we'll allow customers to increase the number of licensed users online, without first getting a manual quote from the PaperCut sales team. This will speed up the processing of these orders and provide a better upgrade experience for customers.
May 26th, 2008
Today we announce the release of PaperCut 8.3. Like all PaperCut releases we've included plenty of new features, enhancements and fixes. One of the notable new features is the addition of a new set of environmental impact reports (a much requested feature).
Another focus in this release has been in the area of performance and scalability. The development team has been working closely with a number of new customers over of the past few months coordinating some very large deployments. In one case the installation has over 350,000 users in a single database - that's one big site! These large projects have driven our development around performance and speed. The improvements will be most notable on larger sites of 5000 users or more, but even smallest sites will see significant gains. Highlights include:
For details of all the changes see the release notes for PaperCut NG or PaperCut ChargeBack.
March 13th, 2008
It's with a tinge of sadness that we're announcing the end-of-life of PaperCut Quota after 9 very successful years. It is superceded by PaperCut NG which provides all the features of Quota and much much more.
When PaperCut Quota was first released in 1999 the world of computing was very different than it is today. Today's customers demand features that were almost unheard of in 1999, like a top quality web-based user interface and full support for all common platforms (Windows, Mac and Linux). PaperCut NG was designed to meet these needs, and had proven to be a great success.
Since the release of PaperCut NG over 3 years ago, most existing customers have upgraded to NG and the vast majority of new customers bought PaperCut NG in preference to Quota. For this reason it is no longer viable for us maintain this aging product.
All existing PaperCut Quota customers will continue to be supported as per our end-of-life policy. See below for details and pricing to upgrade to PaperCut NG.
New customers should instead consider PaperCut NG, as we are no longer selling new licenses for PaperCut Quota.
March 6th, 2008
It's been a while since our last release, in fact it's been about 8 weeks! This has been the longest gap between releases in years. But this doesn't mean we've been taking it easy. You can see from the size of the release notes that the version 8.2 release of PaperCut NG and ChargeBack is a big one.
This week Microsoft announced the official release of Windows Server 2008. We've completed comprehensive testing of PaperCut on the new operating system and made some improvements to ensure a smooth experience for the Server 2008 early adopters.
For details of all the changes check the release notes for PaperCut NG or PaperCut ChargeBack.
December 24th, 2007
Just a quick message about support over the New Year period. The sales team will be online all throughout the New Year and will be processing orders as normal. The majority of the development team will be taking leave between the 25th of December and returning to full strength on the 7th of January. The team will however be regularly online checking for important support email. Premium support customers can arrange phone support on request by leaving a message on the premium-support queue or calling +61-3-9807-5767.
Thanks for your support and have a great holiday season!
December 12th, 2007
The astute may have noticed that it's been over two months since our last release. Well, rest assured, we haven't closed down for the New Year but instead have been busy at work on version 8.0! This release focuses on our continued drive from cross platform compatibility and introduces full support for Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, improvements on Tiger, as well as a number of new features requested by our growing list of Mac users. Windows, and Linux users are not left out with an array of other additions such as new reports, more configuration options and of course support for new hardware. Check out the release history and our upgrade policy for more details. Chris has also blogged about our Leopard migration. Anyway, enough news... back to work... we need to have 8.1 out in the New Year!
September 26th, 2007
Every day we receive many requests from our users. All requests are logged and we do our best to be democratic and implement the most requested features first. The requests range from large complex features that require months of development, down to small fixes that can be implemented in a few hours. Whether the the request is big or small they all contribute to improving the product making it more flexible, robust and easier to use. Today's releases of PaperCut NG 7.5 and PaperCut ChargeBack 7.4 include a number of features and enhancements often requested by our users.
For details of all the changes check the release notes for PaperCut NG or PaperCut ChargeBack. Some highlights include:
September 4th, 2007
Back in 1998 and when PaperCut was founded, the "papercut.com" domain was already taken. We settled on using "papercut.biz" for our website and email addresses. It has served us well over the years, however we've always desired "papercut.com". People are most familiar with ".com" domains, and they are what all major corporations use.
It's taken years and a bit of negotiation, but we've finally secured the papercut.com domain!!
We're currently in the process of transitioning URLs and email addresses to the new domain. But all the old URLs and email addresses will continue to work. So there's no need to update your bookmarks or address books.
It's good to finally have our website on some prime Internet real estate!
August 20th, 2007
Don't be alarmed. We just want to introduce you to our latest feature. Today's releases of PaperCut NG 7.4 and PaperCut ChargeBack 7.3 include printer error alerts/notifications that allow administrators to be notified when a print queue is in error (e.g. paper jam or just off the network). So now you can fix a problem printer even before the users start complaining! It's just another example of how PaperCut simplifies the lives of hundreds of administrators around the world.
But that's not all! For details of all the changes check the release notes for PaperCut NG or PaperCut ChargeBack. Some of the highlights include:
So download now, and start upgrading!
June 22nd, 2007
There are two things that set our latest releases, PaperCut NG 7.3 and PaperCut ChargeBack 7.2, apart from a typical release.
First, we typically add features to PaperCut that are most requested by you. The more we are asked about a feature, the higher we prioritize its addition (so let us know what you want). In this release we've taken the initiative and instead added some features you didn't know you were missing.
One of these is the new environmental impact counters. As Chris mentioned in the blog, another way to cut down on printing costs is to make users aware of the consequences of their actions. These statistics aim to relate the environmental cost of printing to real life concepts that are simple to understand: trees, energy (by relating to a light bulb), and CO2 emissions (which today is becoming something everyone can understand!).
Next, much of the improvements we make to PaperCut are often hidden from sight. They're the things that you would know about if they were missing, but might not notice when they're there. This includes things like continuous improvements to track new printer drivers, improvements to performance and robustness, automating more tasks so you need to do less, and so on. On the other hand, this release contains several features you will definitely notice and that we hope you will find useful. Here's a few you might notice by browsing around the admin interface:
For full details see the release history for PaperCut NG or PaperCut ChargeBack.
May 21st, 2007
We've just uploaded PaperCut NG 7.2 and PaperCut ChargeBack 7.1. In these releases we've focused on adding some long standing most requested features, and fixing a few annoying bugs. The administration interface even gets brushed up with the beginnings of some eye candy.
As usual (per the upgrade policy), this is a free upgrade for customers with a version 7 license. If you're still running version 6 or earlier, there's never been a better time to upgrade.
We feel good about putting out a release that addresses so many of the "small things" that get requested but often sit on the to-list for a while. Now that we've knocked off a lot of those items, feel free to email us with your ideas for the next round of things that would make PaperCut even better for you to use.
March 28th, 2007
It's been a busy time with the release of PaperCut NG 7.1, a new website look, and some other rather big projects underway.
On the software side, the PaperCut NG 7.1 release focuses on both features and bug fixes. We've spent a lot of time addressing commonly reported bugs and optimizing the longer running tasks such as the account sync, group sync and group operations. New features added include:
We've also taken the opportunity to overhaul the website. Many of the changes are under-the-hood such as accessibility improvements (screen readers) and cross browser compatibility. Visually we've kept our existing colors but have moved to a more "Web 2.0" style. We'll be making more improvements to both style and content over the next month.
Our developers have also been working hard on supporting a number of large state-wide and district-wide deployments throughout Australia and North America. One such deployment covers almost 1,000 schools throughout Western Australia. We'll see a few new features coming out of these projects such as improved multi-domain support and a pre-configured install process.
February 13th, 2006
After much development, we are happy to announce that PaperCut ChargeBack 7.0 is now available.
The version of PaperCut ChargeBack is based on the highly successful PaperCut NG technology platform, that has been proven in thousands of businesses and schools worldwide, and in some of the world's largest educational institutions.
This release contains many great improvements over the previous ChargeBack releases, including:
Check the release history for a full list of changes.
This is a new major release of PaperCut ChargeBack. Users of versions 6.x and earlier are recommended to plan the upgrade process. It is highly recommended to follow the instructions outlined in this knowledgebase article. It outlines to process of migrating your accounts and users from the old version to ChargeBack 7.
November 17th, 2006
After around fifteen months of heavy development on PaperCut NG, we are happy to announce that it is ready for its next major release - version 7.0!
This release includes some big new features (as one would expect!), including:
The first public release of the Internet Control module
This in an optional module that allows quota and control of 'the other major network resource' - internet usage. See the the Internet Control Tour page and the User Guide for more information.
The Internet Control module has been in testing for the last 3 months, and is a re-write of Internet Control for PaperCut Quota, which has been used by many organizations for years.
The first public release of PaperCut NG for Mac OS X
PaperCut NG for Mac OS X has been in testing for the last 6 months, and we've had a lot of great feedback along the way.
Page-level color detection
PaperCut NG now has the ability to determine the number of grayscale/color pages in a document on most PostScript, PCL5 and HPGL printer drivers.
For example, a user prints a 21 page document to a color printer. The document is all grayscale except for a color header on the first page. When using standard color detection, the user is charged for 21 pages at the color printer's standard rate. When using page-level color detection, the user would be charged for one page at the color printer's standard rate, and receive the grayscale discount for the other 20 pages.
More information about page-level color detection and how to enable it is available in the user guide.
Many more features since 6.0
Some of the highlights include:
Check the release history for a full list of changes.
This is a new major release of PaperCut NG. As usual, premium support customers receive the upgrade for free. Additionally, if you have purchased PaperCut NG less than 3 months before version 7 was released, your existing license will continue to work with PaperCut NG 7. Otherwise, there is a small upgrade fee (which is between 20% and 30% of the purchase price, in line with our upgrade policy). You can purchase a license upgrade via our online order system.
October 13st, 2006
Today we're proud to announce the release of PaperCut NG 6.3. This release includes a number of great improvements we've been working on for the past few months.
The major changes in this release include:
Visit the PaperCut NG release history page for a detailed list of changes in this and previous releases.
We recommend all existing PaperCut NG users upgrade to this release. Instructions for downloading and upgrading can be found in our Upgrading PaperCut NG article.
October 4th, 2006
We've had some big organizations deploy PaperCut NG lately, helping to prove its suitability for environments and networks of all types and sizes.
Some of the highlights include:
DE&T are deploying PaperCut as part of their EduPaSS system, a custom Linux distribution for use in 2000+ schools across Victoria. They will be making extensive use of the Internet Control module embedded in their Linux distribution. We're excited to be working with the department on a world-leading Linux project.
We have just finished working with the team at Harvard deploying PaperCut in a clustered server environment. It has been an interesting project as PaperCut has been integrated with e-commerce and student management systems using our XML web services and extension system.
It's always challenging working with the IT departments in banks because of their conservative and security-focused mindset. PaperCut has been designed to meet these requirements and it's nice to see a number of commercial organizations realizing this. One such organization is Bendigo Bank, who have deployed PaperCut across their branch offices.
World Vision have made use of our developing world license, deploying PaperCut NG at several locations across Africa.
It's good to have some local organizations taking notice after the successes of PaperCut NG worldwide! We've also heard that one of our leading resellers (who sells PaperCut NG under a different brand) has won a significant education software excellence award in the USA.
September 1st, 2006
The PaperCut Development Team is proud to announce the first release of PaperCut NG Internet Control module. This release allows administrators to monitor and quota Internet use on a network, by integrating with the organization's existing Web proxy server. It includes support for the most common proxy servers on both Windows and Linux environments.
Many organizations have already signed up to the Internet Control testing program. We're hoping that the public release will help attract more testers. Please see the Internet Control testing program for further information.
May 18th, 2006
We have just gone live with our new online ordering system. With the success of PaperCut NG we've had trouble keeping up with all the orders. So we needed to streamline the order process.
In addition to helping us, the new order system provides a number of advantages to our customers. Including:
We also now accept credit card payments via PayPal which provides our customers with even more purchasing flexibility.
If you encounter any problems with the new system, please send us an email to sales@papercut.com.
May 5th, 2006
The PaperCut Development Team is proud to announce the first release of PaperCut NG on Mac. This is the first release targeting Mac servers. It's fully functional and contains all the same features as the Windows and Linux versions. 30 organizations have already signed up to the Mac testing program. We're hoping that the public release will help attract more testers. Please see the Mac testing program page for further information.
May 1st, 2006
PaperCut NG sales have been rocketing ahead. We've had our best quater ever with most of the growth coming from larger PaperCut NG sites, particularly University and district-wide licenses in the education sector. Highlights include:
Over the last two months we've also had a many more university join the ranks and start implementing PaperCut NG. Many of these large organizations such as the University of Louisiana have only just started their implementations, while others such as Politecnico di Torino in Italy and Goucher College are well progressed and have even help the development team with tasks such as language translations and feature development.
April 28th, 2006
Just a quick post to thank teams responsible for our Italian and Portuguese language translations. PaperCut NG 6.2 and onwards will include these translations. A number of other tranlsations are currently in progress and should be complete soon.
March 31st, 2006
Today we're proud to announce the release of PaperCut NG 6.2 for both Windows and Linux servers. This release includes a number of great improvements we've been working on for the past few months.
The major changes in this release include:
Visit the PaperCut NG release history page for a detailed list of changes in this and previous releases.
We recommend all existing PaperCut NG users upgrade to this release. Instructions for downloading and upgrading can be found in our Upgrading PaperCut NG article.
February 8th, 2006
Today we're proud to announce the release of PaperCut NG 6.1 for both Windows and Linux servers. This release includes a number of great improvements we've been working on for the past few months.
The major changes in this release include:
Visit the PaperCut NG release history page for a detailed list of changes in this and previous releases.
We recommend all existing PaperCut NG users upgrade to this release. Instructions for downloading and upgrading can be found in our Upgrading PaperCut NG article.
November 24th, 2005
Today is the official launch of our first Linux version of PaperCut. Over the past 6 years, the PaperCut Software development team have used Linux internally for tasks such as web serving, mail hosting and development. We've always wanted to offer PaperCut on Linux and after 6 years, thousands of hours of development, and hundreds of thousands of lines of code, it's finally here!
PaperCut NG on Linux now gives our users an extra platform option, and importantly a way to save money by avoiding Microsoft server licensing costs. PaperCut NG on Linux offers exactly the same features and benefits as the Windows version.
The PaperCut development team looks forward to working with the Linux user community.
Visit the PaperCut NG page for more information.
October 18th, 2005
We're happy to announce that PaperCut Quota 6.0 is now available for download. This release contains a number of new features, including:
For a detailed list of changes, visit the Release History.
September 30th, 2005
PaperCut NG, our "next generation" edition was released today. After 18 months development and a busy month of testing we've finally approved the application for release. Thanks to all the organizations that have worked with us over the last year to test, provide feedback and assist us with design.
If you're interested in finding out more about PaperCut NG, the product tour is a good place to start. Lots of screen-shots and new Flash animated demonstrations!
August 23rd, 2005
The PaperCut NG beta program starts today. PaperCut NG is our next generation product and the newest addition to the PaperCut family. It's is a premium solution integrating the latest software technologies, innovative ideas and best features. It's specifically targeted at larger schools, universities and businesses looking for a complete cross-platform print management solution.
If you're interested in getting your hands on PaperCut NG now, please sign up for the beta program!
June 10th, 2005
PaperCut Software is pleased to announce a number of significant region-wide software licensing deals with government school authorities and districts. Tasmania, one of Australia's southern states, has recently signed a 5-year deal to supply PaperCut Quota to all 200+ schools.
The Australian state of Victoria has accepted PaperCut Quota onto the Education Department's "Software for Education Rolling Fund" allowing all schools to purchase PaperCut at a considerable discount. PaperCut Quota is the first application of its type to be accepted into the S4E program.
The two statewide deals in Australia come on the back of three district wide licenses in the USA and Canada. All regions put PaperCut through a rigorous evaluation with education specific features such as TopUp Cards / Pre Paid Cards and Web Tools proving to be imperative requirements. These deals demonstrate PaperCut's cost-savings benefits in diverse education institutions.
April 19th, 2005
PaperCut Software has decided to start making annual donations to a number of open source or community projects. The development team use a number of open source tools in the development to PaperCut. These include:
This month the development team has chosen to make a donation to the Jordan Russell, the developer of the Inno Setup project. Jordan has kindly listed our name of the official website as a major sponsor. We hope our donation continues to assist Jordan with making Inno Setup an even better application.
PaperCut Software is also supporting and encouraging the adoption of the popular open source web browser Firefox. PaperCut Software is currently ranked in the top 10 organizations recommending Firefox through the SpreadFireFox.com program. You can read more about our Firefox open source support effort in Matt Doran's web log.
February 4th, 2005
We're happy to announce after much hard work and testing that the PaperCut Quota 5.2 Preview Release is now available for download. This release contains a number of exciting new features, including:
For a detailed list of changes in this release visit the Release History.
The preview release gives you early access to new features, and provides us with feedback that will make this the best PaperCut release ever. Please email us any feedback at support@papercut.com.
PaperCut 5.2 will be officially released before the end of February after the completion of updated documentation.
Downloads for PaperCut Quota 5.2:
Downloads for PaperCut ChargeBack 5.2:
December 22nd, 2004
PaperCut was recently exhibited at the Asia Pacific IT Solutions Expo and the Hi-tec weekly magazine. You can view a few photos of PaperCut’s presence at the event here. We hope to attend more Expo’s around the globe during 2005.
The event was held in Hong Kong and exhibited PaperCut's Chinese language support. Chris Dance, one of our developers has written more about PaperCut's language support in his web log.
November 11th, 2004
The PaperCut development team in cooperation with a number of PaperCut Quota users have put together an "Implementation Guide". The guide is written for IT managers and network administrators deploying PaperCut Quota on a medium to large network. Please see the PaperCut Quota download page for more detail.
If you have any comments on the guide or would like to offer suggestions based on your own experiences, we would love to hear from you.
October 18th, 2004
The PaperCut development team is happy to announce the release of PaperCut Quota 5.1. It provides a number of useful enhancements over the 5.0 release.
Highlights of this release include:
For a detailed list of changes in this release visit the Release History.
If you have any questions about the new release or how to upgrade, please email sales@papercut.com.
October 6th, 2004
Conjunction with the release we have renamed our business-oriented application from "PaperCut Enterprise" to "PaperCut ChargeBack" to better reflect the tasks performed by the software. We are offering a free upgrade for all existing PaperCut Enterprise users.
For a detailed list of changes in this release visit the Release History.
If you have any questions about the new release or how to upgrade, please email sales@papercut.com.
September 23rd, 2004
We're proud to announce the release of PaperCut Quota 5.0. This release is a major upgrade and includes a number of features our customers have been asking for, and others we thought you would find useful.
The key new features include:
For a detailed list of changes in this release visit the Release History.
Existing customers can upgrade by completing this order form (Word) and email it to sales@papercut.com. You can read more about ordering options here.
If you have any questions about the new release or how to upgrade, please email sales@papercut.com.
July 5th, 2004
Now is the ideal time to deploy PaperCut. We have reduced our prices by as much as 30%. In addition we are also offering a special upgrade voucher for customers who purchase after 1st July 2004.
We have started development of PaperCut version 5.0. Version 5.0 will be our most important release yet, incorporating many new features requested by our users. Version five is due for public release in late 2004. In anticipation of the release we are offing customers who purchase PaperCut after the 1st July 2004 an upgrade voucher offering a 50% discount off our standard upgrade price (currently USD 95.00).
If you have any questions about the new price list or the upgrade offer, please email sales@papercut.com.
July 5th, 2004
Rolling news page started. Also keep an eye on our developer web logs here