The Benefits of Pull Printing and Why It Hasn’t Been as Widely Adopted (Yet)

Pull printing is a feature that divides the typical printing process into two parts. First, the end user prints as usual, but the print job is held instead of printing automatically. Second, the user “releases” that print job on their chosen printer.

You might be saying, “Hold on. We’re always trying to make printing easier for end users. How does a two-part printing process improve things?”

It’s a good question. Pull printing seems like it would run counter to print management best practices.

•  It’s convenient. Pull printing lets users retrieve pending print jobs at different printers, wait before releasing their job or just forget about the job altogether. That’s ideal for creating end-user mobility.

• It’s more secure. When users are physically present to release their print jobs, those documents don’t sit unattended in the tray. A more rigorous type of pull printing, secure release printing, even adds authorization to the release step.

• It saves money. Some estimates say unclaimed print jobs are as high as 20% of all print output. When those jobs aren’t printed out to begin with, that waste turns into savings.

• It’s green. Eliminating the waste of unclaimed print jobs doesn’t just save money. It also saves natural resources.

All of that raises another important question: If pull printing is so great, why haven’t more organizations adopted it yet?

That comes down to three general concerns.

With traditional print management solutions, such as print servers, those concerns are justified. And yet, as Georgia’s Fulton County School System discovered, PrinterLogic isn’t your traditional print management solution. Its serverless printing infrastructure made it possible for them to eliminate print servers and roll out user-friendly pull printing to their staff. Read the case study here.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Let’s take a look at those concerns that hold up the adoption of pull printing.

That might be true with when you’re dealing with old school server-based solutions. PrinterLogic is a printer-agnostic, platform-agnostic, serverless software solution that can extend pull printing functionality to almost any network printer. So your existing fleet will work just fine with PrinterLogic.

Pretty much all you have to do is identify a printer of your choosing as a pull-printing-enabled printer in PrinterLogic’s centralized admin console. Then users can use something like PrinterLogic’s Print Release App on their iOS or Android device to release their pull-printing jobs.

A lot of organizations say this because they’re looking at pull printing as an extra solution. Or they’re thinking about all the infrastructure they might have to add to get it to work properly.

With PrinterLogic, pull printing is a native extension of the core solution. That means it’s not some extra layer on top of your print environment. It’s already there and ready to deploy as an optional feature.

Furthermore, our mantra has always been, “Eliminate print servers.” If you choose PrinterLogic for its seamless pull printing, you can also shrink your print infrastructure at the same time. It’s a double whammy that can end up saving money.

PrinterLogic is all about making life easier for end users and reducing the burden on IT’s shoulders.

That’s why pull printing with PrinterLogic is as easy to implement as it is to use. From a print-management standpoint, it’s a simple matter of IT deciding which printers will be designated pull printers. That’s it.

And for your end users, it’s as simple as clicking “Print.” Later they can choose where they want their job to print out using the Print Release App, the printer’s control panel or even a Web browser. This way, they no longer have to worry about their jobs automatically printing at the wrong printer.

Migrating to a new print management solution can be a big decision. PrinterLogic takes the worry out of that, too. We offer a full-featured trial so you can evaluate every aspect of PrinterLogic—from its pull-printing capabilities to its ability to eliminate print servers.