TIFU: 10:30PM, decided to print out a seemingly small document before I went to bed. Printer estimated a 30 minute print time.

r/

My professor sent over a ‘handbook’ for our upcoming exam and suggested that we print it, failing to mention that it was 370+ pages of A4 when formatted as a word document.
So far it has taken me just over three hours, I’ve had to go upstairs to find paper twice and replace the ink cartridge partway through. It’s on page 250, but I’m too committed at this point to give up. My hands are riddled with papercuts, the cat is screaming at me because he wants to go to bed.

I’m supposed to be up early tomorrow, and tonight was the night I told myself I’d fix my sleep schedule.

I’ve heard of printers being able to smell fear and knowing when you’re stressed, but I didn’t realise they actively arrived to keep you awake at night also.

TL:DR Didn’t check the document size, have been printing ‘handbook’ for three hours.

Comments

  1. JAAAMBOOO Avatar

    How do you not do print preview or even look at the document before printing it?

  2. DuncanCraig Avatar

    If you unplug the printer, it stops printing 😉

  3. neil-01 Avatar

    Haha, oh no, the late-night 3D print chaos! Maybe stick to printing in the daylight next time. What was the cursed file, tho?

  4. vivi_t3ch Avatar

    At first I thought this was 3D printing before reading the post and realizing ya meant a paper printer. My bad

  5. MissMat Avatar

    I had a 200 pg assignment that had to be printed. I also printed a textbook so yeah, it sucks. It took me hours to print

  6. UnknownCouple Avatar

    You could just, you know, turn off the printer? The print job disappears from the computer/tablet once it starts printing.

  7. justsomeguywithahat Avatar

    Your professor just likes to watch the world burn if he told everybody to print it out

  8. ThatGuyWhoKnocks Avatar

    Go to a printing shop and get it printed there. Will probably cost you less, and they’ll do the work of binding it for you.

  9. Jmanorama Avatar

    It’ll take a digital print shop about 15-20 minutes to print that for you and it’ll be cheaper than the ink. They can then bind it for you into a couple of different options.

  10. SnooChipmunks2079 Avatar

    I’m only slightly younger than dirt, but when I had professors who wanted you to have 300 pages of their “wisdom” they had you go buy it at Kinko’s.

  11. Tinderboxed Avatar

    Live and learn.

  12. Drawn_to_Heal Avatar

    Man some people just rawdog ctrl-p like paper grows on trees on something

  13. Fomdoo Avatar

    You effed up when someone told you to print something and then you did. Who prints things anymore, just read the doc on your phone/laptop.

  14. SATerp Avatar

    You need to publicly shame that idiot professor.

  15. studog-reddit Avatar

    > failing to mention that it was 370+ pages of A4 when formatted as a word document

    Printed 4up double-sided that’s just a bit less than 50 physical A4s.

  16. hardestbutton2 Avatar

    This doesn’t make any sense. Unless you are using some dot matrix printer from the 80s, any relatively modern (last 20 years) and even absolutely shitty inkjet is still gonna pound out 3-5 pages a minute unless this is like full ink color printing or something. It taking 3+ hours to print a 370 page document is way below even the slowest speeds that an inkjet would do. What are you leaving out.

  17. Cheese-Manipulator Avatar

    Obviously it is too late for OP but I wonder if staples or fedex would be a good option in a situation like this if you wanted it on paper. There are online book printing services too.

  18. junkstabber Avatar

    I’m sure you won’t get to the back on the first day. Finish it later lol.

  19. DmtTraveler Avatar

    If you’re printing stuff like that you really want a b&w laser. Way faster abd cheaper. I never personally print photos so got off the inkjet extortion system over a decade ago and never looked back.

  20. burnerthrown Avatar

    Your printer takes an hour to print 100 pages? I do that at work in 20 minutes.

  21. AmyBr216 Avatar

    You know you can just pause or cancel a print job once it started right?

  22. Justhe3guy Avatar

    If you’re serious about fixing your sleep schedule you would be doing this hours earlier and 9-10 is your winddown time or already in bed 🛌

  23. diverareyouokay Avatar

    You didn’t look at the number of pages when you went to print it? Rookie move.

    Generally I just brought stuff like that during college to the local print shop so they could print and bind it for me.

  24. devadog Avatar

    I’m not sure why everyone is bagging on you. I love your story and it makes me feel better about the dumb stuff I do. Like trying to get my teens to eat salad on a Saturday night

  25. ZirePhiinix Avatar

    You didn’t notice the file taking longer to load? It’s not a small file by any stretch of the imagination.

  26. Mistral-Fien Avatar

    At least it’s not a dot matrix printer. That will keep you awake.

  27. Legal-Run-4034 Avatar

    Yeah idk what the Prof was thinking unless it’s one of those “You can have the textbook or a printout of the textbook to use for exams” type deal because it’s infinitely easier to search for things in PDF format than on paper