Understanding soft and hard quotas

What is a soft quota?

A soft quota is an official limit, lower than the hard quota, that is not an impassible boundary. Its purpose is to let you print your data when you're close to quota. If your soft quota is 185 pages and your hard quota is 200 pages, you have 15 pages worth of room to maneuver, so you don't (for instance) lose your print job in the meantime.

What is a hard quota?

A hard quota is the true limit beyond which you can't go without losing data. (Print job bounces, attempts to print a document may result in rejecting the print job entirely.)

For example:

Soft quota rule:

User Quota  is 10 pages;

20 pages document is sent for printing;

Result: document printed, quota used is -10 pages. Any next document will be rejected.

Hard quota rule:

User Quota  is 10 pages;

20 pages document is sent for printing;

Result: document rejected, quota used is 20 pages. Any next document will be rejected too.