What is pull printing?

Pull printing in one paragraph

Pull printing is a way of printing where a document doesn’t print when you send it. It waits in a queue until you go to the printer and prove who you are, by tapping a badge, typing a PIN or scanning a code. Only then does the printer “pull” your job and print it. Nothing sits in the output tray waiting for you, so nobody else picks it up, and documents you forget about are never printed at all.

Push printing vs pull printing

Normal printing is push printing: your computer pushes the document to the printer, and the printer prints it straight away. It’s simple, and it’s fine for a printer on your own desk. On a shared printer, it has three problems:

• Privacy. A payslip, a contract or a medical letter sits in the tray until its owner walks over, in full view of whoever gets there first.
• Waste. People print, get distracted and never collect. The pages go in the recycling.
• Wrong printer. In an office with several printers, people send to the wrong one and print again.

Pull printing changes the order: send first, print when you’re there. The document is still sent from your device, but the printing waits for you.

Pull, follow-me, secure release: the words

Vendors use these terms loosely, and often interchangeably. Here’s what each one usually means:

Push printing

The usual way: a job prints as soon as it reaches the printer.

Pull printing

Any setup where jobs wait until their owner releases them at a printer.

Secure print release

The same idea, named for its main benefit: documents only print when their owner is present.

Hold and release

Another name for the same thing, common in printer manuals.

Follow-me printing

Pull printing across a group of printers: send once, release at whichever printer you walk up to.

PIN printing

A feature of many printers’ own drivers (often called “secure print” or “private print”): you set a PIN when printing and type it on the printer’s panel. No server needed, but it only works with that printer’s driver.

Release station

A device where people release jobs: a card reader on the printer, a touch screen next to it, or a dedicated kiosk.

How pull printing works

Every pull printing system does four things:

1. Hold the job. When someone prints, the job goes to a holding queue instead of the printer. In older systems that queue is on a print server; newer ones keep it in the cloud, on the printer, or on a small service at the site.
2. Identify the person at the printer. The system needs proof that the owner of the job is standing at that printer. This is where systems differ most (see the next section).
3. Release the job. Once identified, the person chooses which of their waiting jobs to print, or all of them.
4. Clean up. Jobs that are never released are deleted after a set time. Good systems also record what was printed, for reports or billing.

Ways to prove you’re at the printer

Step two decides most of the cost and most of the convenience. These are the common methods:

Card readers and embedded apps depend on the printer model; methods that run on a phone or a separate screen don’t.

Card readers suit offices that already give everyone a badge and buy printers from one manufacturer. Phone-based release suits places where people change often, like coworking spaces, serviced offices and hot-desking teams, because there’s nothing to issue and nothing to install on the printer.

Why offices use it

• Confidentiality. Documents never sit in a shared tray. This matters most for HR, finance, legal and anything with personal data, and in buildings where several companies share printers.
• Less waste. A document nobody collects is never printed, so it costs nothing.
• Accountability. Every release is tied to a person, which makes usage reports and billing accurate.
• Flexibility. With follow-me printing, people don’t need to know which printer is free or working; they release at the nearest one.

The trade-offs

Pull printing is worth it for shared printers, but it isn’t free:

• Hardware and licenses. Card readers and embedded apps cost money per printer, and usually tie you to supported models.
• Infrastructure. A traditional setup needs a print server to hold the queue, with drivers for every printer. That server needs patching, and printer drivers have a long history of security problems. Our guide on replacing your print server covers why.
• One more step. People have to walk to the printer and release their job. Most get used to it within a week, especially when the step is quick.
• Follow-me needs a matching fleet. Releasing a job on any printer works best when all of them accept the same format, which usually means a universal driver or a driverless standard.

Pull printing with a QR code

Commontray does pull printing without card readers, badges or a print server. People print from a web page on their phone or laptop, so there’s no driver either. Each printer has one of three release options:

• Direct: prints as soon as it’s confirmed, for printers in private rooms.
• Release in the app: the document waits until the person taps Print now, usually at the printer.
• Secure: the document waits until the person scans the QR sticker on that printer. The sticker carries a secret code, so the scan proves they’re standing there. It unlocks Print now for them at that printer for 15 minutes.

People choose the printer when they send, and release at that printer; it isn’t follow-me printing across a group. Documents that aren’t released within the hold time (12 hours unless you change it) are deleted and never charged. If a photo of a sticker gets shared, one click gives the printer a new code and the old sticker stops working.

How secure print release works in Commontray

Do you need pull printing?

You probably do if any of these are true:

• More than one team or company shares a printer.
• People print payslips, contracts, medical or financial documents.
• You regularly find uncollected printouts in the tray or the recycling.
• You charge for printing and want the bill to match what people collected.
• People print to the wrong printer, or to one that’s out of paper.

If a printer is in a single person’s office and nobody else uses it, push printing is fine. Most pull printing systems, Commontray included, let you set that per printer.