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Security printing instructions for students and staff


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Secure printing is available for the university and Oamk students and the staff on all university campuses in Oulu. As a student, you can only print if you have enough printing balance. You can buy it online in advance.

When you print in the secure print queue, you can fetch your prints from any of the printers at the campuses: To be able to get the prints, you have to first login or show a RFID or NFC card you have linked to the printer service, so that the printer would start to print.

You can use all the secure printers (Canon multifunction devices; copier-printers) on all campuses. All the devices are available for your use in the University of Oulu and Oamk campuses, because the printing service is shared between both the universities. (More accurate location of devices can be found at the end of this instruction)


How to print to secure print queue from school’s computer

When you have a file open on a school computer to print, select the print function. Then you can see printers print menu, which proposes a printer for you. If you want to print from secure print queue, the printer has to be for students “studentprint”, for the university staff “secureprint” and for oamk staff “secureprint_oamk”. If it is not, browse to the directory where it should be listed as mentioned above. ( How to add a printer to your computer in Oamk )

After you press the Print (Tulosta) button, the file is transferred to the print queue. You can now retrieve your file from secure print device. Please note that you do not have to go to the device immediately but when it suits you. Your prints will remain in the queue for 10 days (240 hours). (The printers are typically not located in the classrooms, most are in the corridors!)


How to print a secure print queue via e-mail, e.g. from a mobile device

Send the file by e-mail to mprints@oulu.fi where the files are transferred to your print queue. Please note that the service will recognise you by your email address so always remember to use your UO or Oamk e-mail address when you send text documents or attachments. If you are sending a message without an attachment, the message itself ends up in the printing queue. If you send a message with an attachment, both will end up in the printer queue. However, you can use the printer console to decide what to print on paper. Only those printed on paper will be charged. If you use spaces in filenames, please rename the files to remove the spaces from the filenames before sending your files to the printer.

  • Through email, you can print only these file types:
    • pdf
    • doc, docx
    • xls, xlsx
    • ppt, pptx
    • rtf, txt
    • jpeg, jpg

NB. If you have a colour file, it will also be printed in colour. Colour prints are more expensive, so in case you want to have black and white prints instead, you should either change the settings while you are fetching your prints from the printer device, or you can make a black and white version of your file and use that for printing. If you change the settings on the printer, the price reservation will change and you will be charged for black and white printing. I.e. the price reservation is determined based on the type of the file in the queue but the actual price you pay, is based on the actual prints you have printed.


Get your prints from the printer

When you retrieve your prints, you have to identify yourself. You have two options for logging in:

  1. Log in with your UO or Oamk username (for Oamk, the form is username@kk, for UO the form is username@student) and related password: choose the AD login option from the touch screen to get to the login view. OR
  2. You can log in with a NFC card (Near Field Communication card; also RFID cards work) you have already connected to your username: Show your NFC card to the card reader device on the printer.

When you are identified, you can view your print queue from the printers control panel. If you print often, registering a card is worth it. You can activate your card at the same time you are retrieving your prints. You can activate any of your cards equipped with a NFC payment feature for example a debit card or a Waltti-card.

NBDon’t log in if the printer is still printing someone else’s job! If you log in, the other user usually will be logged out and the ongoing printing will be interrupted. There may be different settings in each device.

Remember to log out from the device when you are done!


How to register your card:

  1. Display your card to reader and the device beeps.
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  2. Then, log in with your own username (for Oamk: use the form username@kk, for UO students: username@student, for UO staff: username@univ) and password.
  3. Once you have successfully signed in on the device with your username and password, the card is activated. After activation, you can start printing. You will find the printing functions at the control panel of the device.
  4. Once you have printed your work, log out from the service. If you forget to log out of the machine, the machine automatically logs you out but there is a short period when someone else could use your balance: Please note that copy function would then be available to others within the limits of your balance. Of course, you should not use other accounts but please log out of the device if you notice someone has forgotten to do so!

See Canon’s video (the user ID should be your username@kk/username@student/username@univ where the username is your Oamk or UO username. The password is your Oamk or UO account’s password.)


Printing on special materials

It’s not allowed to load your own papers into the printers paper drawers. However, you can print and copy on your own special paper (sticker sheets, coloured papers, thick papers ) by using the multi-purpose tray. It is usually located on the right side of the device.

The printing on the transparency is not possible but you can first print your work on the paper and then copy it on the transparency through the multi-purpose tray. Use only transparencies which have been meant for copying. For example the transparencies for OHP are not suitable for this purpose for the sake of melting danger.

  1. Open the multi-purpose tray and set the special material on it.
  2. The device is asking for the size and type of material, set them using the touch screen and press OK.
  3. Copy at the device or print at the workstation.
  • At the workstation: Switch from the print menu to the properties on the printer and set multi-purpose tray as the paper source, save the change with the OK button and then print.

How much it cost to print?

As a student, you can print in the limits of your current printing balance. You can buy more balance in the online store from 1 to 20 € at a time. In the past, both universities have supported the printing of students in the form of a printing quota, but this practice has been abandoned in the summer of 2023.

Printout prices are listed here (updated July 28, 2020):

Prints (and copies) Price
Black-and-white A4 or A3, one-sided print 0,025 e
Black-and-white A4 or A3, double-sided print 0,05 e
Colour A4 or A3, one-sided print 0,136 e
Colour A4 or A3, double-sided print 0,272 e

In practice, this means that if you print only A4-size (= normal size) black and white prints, you can print 80 double-sided (or 160 one-sided) prints with 4 €. One A3-size (= large size) black and white print costs the same as an A4-size print: You can save money if you have longer documents and you print them as spreads. Color prints are clearly more expensive, a single colour print costs more than five black and white prints.

To promote environmentally friendly habits, we recommend you print double-sided prints because that saves paper. This feature is a default in the printer settings.

There are paper available in the secure printing devices and the printing costs include papers. Canon takes care of filling the paper drawers. You should not load your own papers into the printers paper drawers. If you need to use your own, special paper for your prints, you can use the multi-purpose tray

Scanning is free of charge.


How to check the printing balance and to deposit money for it:

NOTE! Only student accounts have a printing balance. The printing of the staff is paid by the own unit.

To check your balance, login to the https://prints.oulu.fi. When login to the service, type your username in the form:

  • UO students: username@student
  • Oamk students: username@kk

Notice that the system of Canon cannot process passwords in which there are Scandinavian characters, and special characters also can cause problems. So change your password, if necessary, to get into the service.

If you are running out of your printing balance, as a student you can deposit money to your account in the service. You can pay with a credit card or through Finnish online banking. It’s possible to charge your quota from 1 to 20 € at one time. See the instructions: How to deposit money to your Canon uniFLOW account (for printing)

It is also possible that an other which sits in your side takes care of paying, the payment goes to the user account which was logged in the service.

NOTE! Do notice that you should try to use your deposit before you finish your studies, as unfortunately, we are not able to refund your deposit.


Scanning

As a student or a staff member, you can scan your files with a printer and get it sent directly to your e-mail address. Scanning is cost-free.


SafeQ printers locations

Linnanmaa campus
Along Väylä and other corridors in 1st floor
Kontinkangas campus
Along main corridors and in lobbies in 1st floor
Oulainen
Learning center (oppimiskeskus), 1st floor
GameLab (Rantakatu 3)
Class room
Professorintie campus
2nd floor
Louhi Lobby
Louhi B wing, corridor
Louhi D wing, corridor
Paasi Room 2347 (SIMLAB)
Paasi Corridor (in front of room 2321, close to IT class room 2336)
Paasi Corridor (in front of room 2323, close to IT class room 2336)
3rd floor
 Louhi C wing, corridor

Problems with printing?

When, as a student, your printing balance is too low:

mprints@oulu.fi

  • If printing by e-mail, i.e. mobile printing, is not possible as a student, check if you have enough balance.
  • Please remember that the mprints@oulu.fi address only accepts printing requests sent from university and Oamk email addresses.

Canon Oy is responsible for the common printing services of UO and Oamk.

  • The service engineer gets the information about the ending of paper and the colour as well as about the functional disorders automatically. He will arrive as soon as possible there within the working hours at 8 – 16.
  • Every one can clarify the paper jams by following the instructions on the display.

Contact Canon’s service engineer by email: canon (at) oulu.fi. 

  • If a contact applies to a certain device, attach the serial number of the device. It is visibly up in the sticker.
  • In other situations which require immediate help, the service engineer can be reached for by telephone in those cases where the phone number is visible in the A3 sized quick instructions near device.
  • The service engineer can also be contacted if you need guidance or if you have something to ask about the print service.

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