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FAQ: Public Printing in SCS

General Information

SCS public printing stations are located across SCS spaces. Please view our public printer list for locations and capabilities.

Most printers are in accessible areas with exceptions depending on user access needs. Increased hardware accessibility features will be forthcoming as we refresh our fleet of printing/copy stations in the near future. 

Our public printing service can be used for any SCS-related work. Since public printing is a shared resource, we encourage you to be considerate of these resources by:

  • Previewing print jobs on your computer before printing.
  • Only printing large jobs at night or off-hours.
  • Use the copier, not the printer, for multiple copies.
  • Use color printing only when necessary (it is usually significantly more expensive than black & white printing).
Currently, there is no quota for printing, but we ask that our customers be reasonable when using this service.
Print requests are held in the queue for 48 hours, after which they will be automatically deleted.
As authentication is associated with the submitter's CMU ID and Andrew username, printing can only be retrieved with the same CMU ID (and associated account) and cannot be retrieved by someone else.

If you are issued a new/renewed CMU ID Card, your SCS public printing account will need to be reset. Please complete the account reset form linked on our printing registration page. Once your request is processed, you can then register your new CMU ID Card.

Funding for the public printing system is provided by the Dean’s Office in coordination with departments within SCS.

Need Help?

Printer Features

Yes, the public printers can support large print jobs. We strongly encourage our community to print large jobs at night or off-hours.

Yes, all of the SCS public printers can print in color. Please use color printing only when necessary (it is usually significantly more expensive than black & white printing).

No, our public printers do not currently support alternate printer paper or media types. If needed, we do offer a poster printing service for our SCS community. Requests can be submitted on our poster printing webpage. For other printing needs and projects, please visit the Tartan Ink website.
Yes, public printing stations can be used to make photocopies. However, we do recommend using a copy machine if you are making multiple copies.
Currently, documents or images scanned at our printing stations cannot be stored directly to Box or Google drive, but we support email or direct USB memory storage.
Mobile printing is not currently supported within the SCS public printing system, but stay tuned as it will be available in the near future. As an alternative, you may use the campus printing system to print from a mobile device to an Andrew printing kiosk. For more information, visit the Computing Services website.
Yes, you can submit print jobs while off-site but must connect securely into the CMU network using the CMU VPN.
As authentication is associated with the submitter's CMU ID and Andrew username, printing can only be retrieved with the same CMU ID (and associated account) and cannot be retrieved by someone else.

If you do not wish to print a submitted print job, it can be disregarded as unprinted jobs will only be held for 48 hours and then are automatically deleted.  

No, our public printing system does not support faxing. For a list of all capabilities, please visit the Printer List page of our website.
No, our public printers do not currently support hole punching. For a list of all capabilities, please visit the Printer List page of our website.
Our public printing stations' features and locations can be found on the Printer List page of our website.

Getting Support

Please submit a request to help@cs.cmu.edu or call SCS Operations at 8-2608.

We're constantly looking for ways to better serve our community. Please send an email to help+printing@cs.cmu.edu with the suggested location for evaluation.

Please email help@cs.cmu.edu or call SCS Operations at 8-2608.