RolandJS, this post is almost word for word from one posted in 2010 on a Stackexchange post.
The only problem is that unless you lock everyone down to not make any system changes. There are ways around the lock to fool the printer.
Most color printers do not use just Black and White. They will also use the color for shades of Gray.
"...Most color printers do not use just Black and White. They will also use the color for shades of Gray..."
bro67, networks have changed from my earlier days :) Yes, many many printers use color for shades of gray. I guess the thread starter will continue the search for an answer that may not exist.
Both of my current printers, an Ink-Jet and a full colour laser, use the CMYK system, As do most colour printers that I have used over many years. The do have the option of mixing the colour Inks to produce an approximation of Black and White, (greyscale), these are often not a great approximation, with a lot of colour cast issues.
Normally both printers will, if set to print in black and white or greyscale, just use the Black Ink / Toner and dithering to provide a true grey scale image, (as you would expect to get from a monochrome printer ), They are often using micro dot print head to mix within the "pixel" size that they are stated to work at
To aid in this Black & White and greyscale requirement the black cartridge is more that twice the size of the colour cartridges, as most prints will be black text only :)
As for the original question it should be possible by the use of permissions, ( if the printer driver is sophisticated enough).
set up the print driver to print in greyscale but only give managers permissions to change settings on the print driver. I'm sure that a number of printers I have used in business applications had network drivers that could be synchronised with the Active Directory groups used in the company
Sorry but networking has not changed much from the early days of 10 base-T.
We are talking about drivers, not infrastructure. What the OP is wanting, cannot be sone on a Windows network, without having specialized software for very expensive high end Multi type Copiers/fax/printers.
Like I stated before. I can do it from CUPS. Because I can assign users into groups on a shared printer on a Samba Network, without needing a Domain. I can also do it with something like Zentyl.
Inkjet printers do not just use Black for B&W printing. They use all colors. Lasers if cheap can end up using all colors for various shades of Gray. Better ones can decide to only use just Black for Gray shades.
"...set up the print driver to print in greyscale but only give managers permissions to change settings on the print driver. I'm sure that a number of printers I have used in business applications had network drivers that could be synchronised with the Active Directory groups used in the company" -- barman58
bro67 -- would the above from barman58 do the job?
We do this now, but we give everyone access to both printers. Our printers are shared out from a server, so we create one queue for color and one for black & white. So, we may have PRINTER-BW and PRINTER-CL. I'm sure you could do this and just define the permission on them to allow one group or the other.
Hi there
There's more Pontificating on this thread than I imagine even The Pope is used to. !!!!!!!!!
Of course it CAN be done
Simply install as two different Network shared printers say MONOCHROME and COLOUR. Properties of each "Printer" would allow users the selections / restrictions you want. Or as Deaconfrost says create two different queues from the server. IMO though the users would probably find it easier to select by NAME and those that didn't have access / require the Colour option would only see the one printer.
Easy peasy. Bog standard Network sharing - been available way before even XP days.
I'm not a network Guru - but surely this stuff is basic Network 101 --- if people can't do this I wouldn't like to use their I.T services !!!!!
If you have trouble setting up Network shared printers I posted a simple thread on this several years back on the W7 Forums --I'm sure it's still there if you hunt for it on my user id, It would be a really old post though.
Found it
Post nr 5 in this thread
XP to 7 Printer sharing - Windows 7 Help Forums
Cheers
jimbo
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