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UniPrint Gateway
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General Information
General Information
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Reliability
Reliability
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 Cluster and Load Balancing Support
 Cluster and Load Balancing Support
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Only UniPrint Gateway provides support for both cluster services and load balancing; ensuring critical print infrastructures remain available to all users. ThinPrint Connected Gateway offers cluster support only.
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Document Rendering
Document Rendering
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UniPrint, the PDF-based print solution, provides the best match when compared with original application output.
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Support Options
Support Options
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Phone
Phone
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Your UniPrint support package entitles you to full telephone-based support with a fully trained UniPrint Support Analyst. With UniPrint, opening a support incident is just a phone call away. |
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E-mail
E-mail
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If you have a quick question sometimes the best way to get a quick response is to send an e-mail to the people who know best. |
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Web
Web
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The UniPrint Web forum is monitored by our best Support Analysts and Developers, as well as many UniPrint customers with extensive experience. |
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Usability
Usability
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Minimal User Retraining
Minimal User Retraining
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The intuitive design of UniPrint creates a standard printing experience for all users. This avoids retraining, and simplifies printing to ANY printer by providing a standard user experience.
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Initial Setup Time and Administrative Retraining
Initial Setup Time and Administrative Retraining
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Intuitive user interfaces for configuring print server connections and automated installations simplify deployment of UniPrint Gateway and triCerat Simplify Printing. Neither solution requires extra manual steps or database editing as required by ThinPrint. |
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Configuration Management
Configuration Management
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With features such as group policy configuration, and per-user preferences, UniPrint allows each user to set the exact settings they need to print at their best. Most other solutions provide only machine defaults. |
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Security
Security
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Encrypted Transfer
Encrypted Transfer
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Like most solutions UniPrint supports secure communications between application and print servers. |
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Savings
Savings
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Bandwidth Savings
Bandwidth Savings
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When compared across many sample documents, UniPrint rates the best for print job compression, saving precious bandwidth over slower WAN connections.
See "Technical Information" below for more details. |
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Administrative Savings
Administrative Savings
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When considering key factors such as deployment and configuration management, UniPrint rates the highest, with the simplest configuration, and out-of-the-box functionality.
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Pricing
Pricing
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When comparing license models and per-server costs UniPrint ranks as the least expensive solution to implement.
*Prices may vary by reseller. |
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Technical Information
Technical Information
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Administrative Experience
Administrative Experience
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Requirements
Requirements
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Server Software
Server Software
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Of the solutions reviewed, all require the installation of server-side software making deployment options a critical factor when selecting a Universal Print Solution. |
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Eliminates Client Software
Eliminates Client Software
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All three thin-client solutions are designed to operate without specific client-side software by integrating with existing Windows print servers. This eases network printer management for all clients. |
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Independant Database
Independant Database
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The UniPrint Gateway solution does not require a separate database server to track configuration information, easing Total Cost of Ownership. |
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Bandwidth (Ranked)
Bandwidth (Ranked)
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In a random sampling of 7 print jobs, other solutions achieved sizes of about 2.5 megabytes. UniPrint offers a bandwidth savings of nearly 90% at 329 kilobytes.
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Embedded Fonts
Embedded Fonts
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Embedded fonts are critical for accurate print outs. ThinPrint does not support font embedding, while UniPrint's subset embedding allows for optimal file sizes and content preservation. |
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Text and Images
Text and Images
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A large Word document containing text and many types of images is commonplace in many enterprises, UniPrint offers an 84% reduction in transfer size over the leading competitors.
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Slide Presentations
Slide Presentations
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Slide presentations often contain many embedded images, causing EMF-based print jobs to drastically increase to nearly 8.5 megabytes, when compared with UniPrint's 0.4 megabytes, a savings of 95%. |
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Photo Quality Images
Photo Quality Images
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By accurately rendering images with JPEG compression UniPrint can achieve bandwidth savings upwards of 91%.
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Compatibility
Compatibility
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64-bit
64-bit
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UniPrint Gateway Module 6.1 will support 64-bit processor architectures. |
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Document Portability
Document Portability
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By rendering print jobs using the Adobe PDF standard, UniPrint print jobs can be saved or distributed to any client platform, creating a truly Universal Print Solution. All other solutions use EMF formatting which is only available to Microsoft Windows clients.
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Tray Mapping (Legacy Application Support)
Tray Mapping (Legacy Application Support)
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To support legacy applications, UniPrint allows administrators to virtualize trays on specific printers. Legacy applications which can only access a specific paper tray can be redirected to any available tray.
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Deployment
Deployment
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Server
Server
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Local Installation
Local Installation
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All reviewed software solutions can be installed locally.
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Automated Installation
Automated Installation
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UniPrint Gateway and triCerat Simplify Printing require only connection information to complete the installation process. ThinPrint Connected Gateway involves a cumbersome process of manually installing and registering binaries, as well as intricate manual database edits. |
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Configuration
Configuration
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Local Configuration
Local Configuration
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All solutions support per-machine configurations.
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Centralized Printer Administration
Centralized Printer Administration
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UniPrint Gateway and triCerat Simplify Printing allow administrators to make critical configuration changes to all printers from one location.
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Client Device Binding
Client Device Binding
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With UniPrint PrintPAL a user's print experience will accurately reflect their physical environment. Specific network printers can be associated to a thin-client device, ensuring the default printer is the closest printer. |
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User and Group Binding
User and Group Binding
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With UniPrint PrintPAL, administrators can ensure users receive the default printer that is right for them. With multiple mapping criteria, PrintPAL eliminates the need for intricate logon scripts and processes. |
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Features
Features
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Encrypted Communications
Encrypted Communications
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Encryption is available for all solutions while transferring data from terminal to print servers. The UniPrint implementation supports many secure PKI encryption options to ensure confidential information remains confidential.
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Direct Printing Support (Lexmark Printers)
Direct Printing Support (Lexmark Printers)
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To improve print speeds and reduce bandwidth costs, UniPrint can send a PDF directly to a Lexmark printer which can then render the document directly to media without the use of a print server.
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Active Directory Security Integration
Active Directory Security Integration
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With seamless Active Directory Integration UniPrint and triCerat allow administrators to easily manage access rights to printers. |
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Reliability
Reliability
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Network Load Balancing
Network Load Balancing
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To boost print job transfer speeds and add additional fault tolerance to print infrastructures only UniPrint allows administrators to load balance connections to multiple print and spool servers. |
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Microsoft Cluster Services Support
Microsoft Cluster Services Support
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Cluster Services, supported by UniPrint and ThinPrint, create a high availablity print infrastructure. Even during unforeseen outages, cluster services allow an alternate server to seamlessly provide print services to all users.
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User Experience
User Experience
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Rendering
Rendering
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Image Support
Image Support
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UniPrint offers several types of image compression and the ability to automatically choose the best type for your print job, ensuring optimal job size and quality. With this technology image intensive jobs were compressed by UniPrint up to 89% more efficiently.
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Overlapping
Overlapping
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When compressing overlapped images, ScrewDrivers was unable to accurately render the test images. UniPrint and ThinPrint achieved comparable results. |
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Transparent
Transparent
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When compressing transparent images UniPrint achieved compression sizes up to 85% smaller than all competitors. |
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Font Support
Font Support
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Third-Party Fonts
Third-Party Fonts
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According to ThinPrint documentation font embedding is not supported. This creates a heavy burden when managing font sets across client machines with unique software versions.
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Licensed Fonts
Licensed Fonts
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According to ThinPrint documentation font embedding is not supported. This creates a heavy burden when managing font sets across client machines with unique software versions.
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Options
Options
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Paper Sizes
Paper Sizes
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Since printing requirements and output trays vary by business UniPrint supports more paper sizes than any other competitor. This allows for the most portable print jobs in the industry, allowing jobs to be saved for later printing if a printer is unavailable due to location.
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Standard Paper Sizes
Standard Paper Sizes
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All solutions reviewed support standard paper sizes such as Letter, Legal and A4. |
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All Paper Sizes
All Paper Sizes
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Only UniPrint offers support for all form sizes available on a terminal server.
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Custom Forms
Custom Forms
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UniPrint also offers support for custom form sizes defined on a terminal server allowing for the best application compatibility on the market.
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Paper Handling
Paper Handling
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Orientation
Orientation
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All solutions reviewed supported portrait and landscape orientation equally well.
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Duplex
Duplex
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All solutions reviewed supported duplex options equally well.
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Tray Selection
Tray Selection
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All solutions reviewed offered tray selection options to handle multiple paper sources and sizes, including auto-select. |
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