how to view log files for printing made by different users on LAN

Question

I have a windows 2003 server and have attached a printer to this server. This printer is installed on the server and shared to all computers on the local area network. I want to check to see which users have print jobs and no. of prints, details, etc. I think there is a facility to see the details but I don't know where it is located.

Answer 1

We use a program called PaperCut print logger for this. Hope this helps

Answer 2

The server should log this in the System event log. You can view this using event viewer, or you could put together a script that periodically scans the event log and summarises the relevant info. For example, on one of my print servers I see this event logged:

Event Type: Information
Event Source:   Print
Event Category: None
Event ID:   10
Date:       16/03/2012
Time:       11:35:46
User:       DOMAIN\username
Computer:   PRINTSERVER
Description:
Document <number>, <job name> owned by <username> was printed on
<printer> via port <port name>. Size in bytes: <size>; pages printed: <pages>

For more information, see Help and Support Center at
http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/events.asp.

The description always follows this same pattern, and the values between brackets are:

• number - this seems to increase with each job, it's probably not terribly useful.
• job name - Windows programs send a print job name when they print something. For example, a Word doc would send the filename as the job name.
• username - the AD username of the person who generated the print job.
• printer - the name of the printer.
• port name - the port used by the printer on the server. For a normal IP printer this will be something like "IP_172.16.100.50".
• size - how big the job was.
• pages - how many pages were printed.