Printing Paperwork

Introduction to Printing

Printing in Alma, and therefore Rapido, has changed a lot over the years. Printing used to be nearly impossible for Resource Sharing, so staff developed a program to generate pull slips using data from spreadsheets downloaded from Alma. Unlike the early days of Alma Resource Sharing, Rapido has Print Slip buttons and several ways to print items, but it still isn't as intuitive as it is in most word processing programs.  

Roles

To be able to print in Alma faculty, staff, and student assistants need specific roles. Users will need one of the two following roles to print:

• Printouts Queue Operator
• Printouts Queue Manager

Both roles can print items, but the Printouts Queue Manager role is required for reprinting items printed by other users and using the Printing Multiple Items Per Page cloud app. Since the manager role only lets users reprint things they can already print it is safe for users at all levels to use. Everyone who processes Rapido should have the Printouts Queue Manager role. 

Activating The "Printing Multiple Items Per Page" Cloud App

Before printing anything in Rapido, it is recommended staff add the Printing Multiple Items Per Page cloud app. This app streamlines the printing process and saves paper by printing multiple slips on a single sheet of paper. To add the app, go to the top right corner of the screen in Alma and click and icon of four squares grouped together making one larger square. This will open the Cloud App Center. Click Available Apps and search Printing Multiple Items Per Page to find the app. Click into the app and select Activate. The app will now appear on the Activated Apps list in the Cloud App Center in the future. 

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Printing With The App

Now that you have the Printing Multiple Slips Per Page cloud app added to Alma you are ready to print. Printouts will be generated automatically during certain points in your daily workflow or when you click Print Slip in Rapido. These printouts do not immediately print (unless quick prints is enabled), but are put in the printing queue and still need to be sent to the printer.

Once a printout has been sent to the print queue it can be released by going to the Cloud App Center and selecting the Printing Multiple Slips Per Page cloud app. The Pending printouts will appear automatically at the top of the list of items to print in the app. Check the box next to Check/Uncheck All or select individual items to print. With the items selected, click Mark As Printed followed by Print X Records (X being the number of selected records). A new page will appear with the printouts ready to go. These printouts will look very large, but they will resize when you print. Right Click anywhere on the page and select Print.

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Printing Without The App

While it is possible to print without using the Printing Multiple Slips Per Page cloud app, it is not recommended. When the CSU went live with Rapido the cloud app did not exist. Many different workflows were used including the Quick Printing feature and the Printouts Queue section in Alma under Admin > Printing > Printouts Queue. Both methods proved confusing or required many more clicks to use. It is recommended faculty, staff, and student assistants disable Quick Printing and access the Printouts Queue through the cloud app and not directly through Alma. 

Quick Printing

Faculty, staff, and student assistants can enable or disable Quick Printing for their Alma login by clicking the location symbol in the top right section of the Alma toolbar on the main page of Alma. After opening the Location Settings, a checkbox to enable or disable Quick Printing will appear. It is recommended this stay unchecked.

Enabling Quick Printing will make items print immediately when you click Print Slips in the Borrowing and Lending sections of Alma. Unfortunately, it will also make items print immediately when an item is checked in or out, making them all print with one slip per page. This uses up more paper and the slips were designed to print two per page.

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Printouts Queue

The Printouts Queue can be accessed in Alma under Admin > Printing > Printouts Queue. The Printouts Queue is similar to the Printing Multiple Slips Per Page cloud app but it does not resize the prints to print multiple items per page.