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Pay4Print

North Island College (NIC) has implemented Pay4Print, an online pay for printing system. In order to print on student printers (at the Comox Valley, Campbell River, and Port Alberni campuses), a user requires an NIC Pay4Print account and sufficient printing credits. Each printed page costs 10 cents.

For instructions, click here.


The NIC Pay4Print Portal https://nic.pcounterwebpay.com


Where a user can:

  • Create a Pay4Print account
  • Deposit funds to his/her account
  • View the account balance
  • View past transactions made via the Pay4Print portal
  • Change the password for the account
  • Change the e-mail address for the account
  • Request forgotten logon credentials
  • Report issues

Three Ways to Pay for Printing

  1. Create an account and purchase printing credits online using a credit card.
  2. Create an account and purchase printing credits online using a debit card.
  3. Purchase NIC PrintBucks at select locations, in increments of $1 or $10 (cash only).

Purchases of printing credits and PrintBucks are non-refundable.


Creating an Account

  1. Go to https://nic.pcounterwebpay.com.
  2. Click on the ‘I do not have an account yet, I would like to create one’ option and click ‘Next’.
  3. Enter your seven-digit student number in the username field. If you are not a registered student, please enter a username of your choice.
  4. Enter a password and email address and click ‘Next’.
  5. Once the account has been created, your username and password will be displayed, and a confirmation will be sent via e-mail.

Adding Funds to an Account

Pay4Print credits can be purchased online with a credit or debit card.

  1. Go to https://nic.pcounterwebpay.com and log in with your username and password.
  2. Select ‘Deposit funds to my print/copy account’ and press ‘Next’.
  3. Select the amount you wish to deposit (from $5 to $50, in $5 increments) and click ‘Next’.
  4. Confirm your order and your email address by clicking ‘Next’.
  5. Click ‘Next’ on the amount confirmation page.
  6. Choose a payment method: Credit card or Interac Online (for Debit payments)
  7. If you chose Credit Card, fill in the form and click 'Process Transaction'. If you chose Debit, click 'Proceed to online banking' and you will be taken to your bank’s online portal. Please note that at present, you can only pay if you have a debit card at one of the following institutions: BMO, RBC Royal Bank, Scotiabank or TD Canada Trust.
  8. A payment confirmation screen will appear and you will receive a confirmation email (if an email address was setup with the account). You have successfully added funds to your pCounter account.

Purchasing PrintBucks

For users wishing to pay in cash, $1 and $10 PrintBucks are available from the following locations during their posted operating hours.

  • Comox Valley Bookstore
  • Campbell River Bookstore
  • Port Alberni Bookstore

Problems?

Report problems to our Help Desk by e-mailing the details to studentprinting@nic.bc.ca. Please keep any defective prints (e.g. those with poor print quality) until your issue has been resolved, as we may wish to see them. For issues related to the Pay4Print portal, please submit a help request to nic@pcounterwebpay.com, providing a description of the issue and your contact information.



Frequently Asked Questions


Why is North Island College implementing a pay-for-printing system?

During the past academic year at the NIC libraries, nearly 600,000 pages were printed on the student printers. In consideration of the environment, NIC is hoping to reduce printing by as much as 80%. Printing volume has increased over the years, to a level where it is no longer sustainable. Many universities and colleges have had pay for-printing for a number of years. NIC is implementing such a system to encourage responsible printing.


What alternatives do I have to printing?

Responsible printing means printing only what you need.

  • Do you need a hard copy or will an electronic copy suffice? Consider e-mailing yourself documents of interest, or save them to a USB memory stick. (Don’t forget to take your memory stick when you have finished working on a computer.)
  • Proofread your work on-screen, as opposed to printing draft copies for that purpose.
  • Select only the pages you wish to print, instead of printing the whole document.

How much does it cost to print?

Each printed page costs 10 cents. If both sides of the page are printed on, as with a duplex job, it is counted as two printed pages. Your account will be charged 20 cents.


How does the Pay4Print system work?

Users prepare documents as they normally would. The only thing that changes is the appearance of some dialog boxes, prompting users for Pay4Print credentials, before the document is released to the printer.


  1. A few seconds after submitting a print job, a dialog box will pop up prompting you for
    your Pay4Print username and password.

    student printing
  2. Once you have submitted your Pay4Print credentials, your current account balance will be displayed,
    along with the cost of the print job submitted.

    student printing
  3. Click on “Print” to confirm your job and release it to the printer. Your job will print normally provided
    you have a sufficient balance. If you have insufficient credit, the print job is cancelled, and a
    pop-up appears, stating insufficient funds and displaying your current balance.

Why does Pay4Print charge an extra page when I print from Internet Explorer?

In some instances Internet Explorer will add an extra page when printing, which is counted by the pay-for-printing system. Specifically, this occurs if the actual content requires an odd number of pages and the printer is set to two-sided printing (the default).

Several options are available to avoid being charged for additional pages when printing from Internet Explorer:

  1. Change the printer properties from duplex (two-sided) printing to single-sided before submitting your print job.
  2. Send your print job to the Microsoft XPS Document Writer, which creates an XPS document. Double-click on the XPS file to open it, and print it as you would any other document.
  3. Select only the pages that you really need. The last page may not have any desirable content.
  4. Cut only the content you need, paste it into Microsoft Word, and print from there.

The Pay4Print portal will not let me create an account without an e-mail address. What options do I have?

E-mail is the means by which Pay4Print sends you confirmation of any purchases, and by which you can retrieve a forgotten username and password. Without an e-mail address, you are limited to purchasing PrintBucks in increments of $1 and $10 at the bookstore (cash only). Alternatively, you can sign up for a free e-mail address with a provider of your choice, such as Hotmail or Yahoo.


What if I forget my Pay4Print password?

For accounts created online at Pay4Print, passwords can be retrieved by accessing https://nic.pcounterwebpay.com and requesting your credentials to be sent to the e-mail address used to create the account.

For users with PrintBucks obtained from the bookstore, the logon credentials are on the front of the card. Please ensure your PrintBucks are kept in a safe place as we cannot replace lost credits.