AdminXP.com: Print: Printer configuration II.

Print: Printer configuration II.

Printing from a client computer

After having installed and configured the printer you can start printing from the computer. Each program can have its own specific settings, therefore I will only present some examples and tips in this article. To print a document from your favorite program (e. g. MS World) you can use two ways:
1. Printer icon in the control panel - desired document will be automatically sent to the default printer. Print settings will be taken from default printer parameters.
2. In "File" - "Print".

How the print dialog looks depends on the program you print from and on the print driver (and also printer type).

Here you can change printer and print properties before you start printing - e. g. page range, number of copies. Through the "Properties" button you can affect the print itself (orientation, resolution, colors....).

Print settings

The print properties you can set up in the printer properties. The most often used parameters:
Orientation - Portrait or Landscape - very important, but often omitted by many users. If you choose the "Landscape" option, you can print documents or images being larger in their width than in their height. If you choose the "Portrait" option for the same document, it will be running off the page, will not be printed completely or will be printed on two pages.
Multiple pages per sheet - prints 2 or more pages onto one sheet of paper. This option is optimal for printing documents containing larger fonts or documents to be then folded to a lesser format.
Paper and quality - choosing paper type, print quality (color setup, ink volume). Feeder - it is suitable to use appropriate feeder for specific paper types (e. g. in laser printers, these are called manual feeders, where thicker paper is placed to and so the paper goes through the printer without being bent).
Advanced Options - resolution, paper format, print mode (photo), color correction......
Other settings - depends on manufacturer, printer type and driver version. You can also meet drivers made by Microsoft and by the particular manufacturers. Drivers from the manufacturer can provide better settings, but there can appear some errors that may not be happening in the drivers from Microsoft (and vice versa).

Tips for printing

Most programs enable to view the page before it is printed. Before you start printing you can see how the document will look. The document in the preview may not be perfectly faithful, printed document can look different.
Most programs have their own settings, it is usually print area setup and a scale measuring display size. In MS World, it is e. g. "Page setup" option in "File" menu, where you will find options for setting up paper orientation, margins and header, page setup, borders, lines numbering...
Different ways of setting up the mirror image (for opaque projectors and iron-on sheets): 1. Some printers enable to define the print directly through the driver (you can define it in the printer properties). 2. Special print will be set up by the program you print from. 3. Special print will be set up by another program (driver) - "Fineprint" belongs among the best known ones. 4. In case you want to print from a program that does not enable special print, but supports various formats, you can export your document to some other file and print it in another program which enables desired type of printing.
Older simple text documents can be sent to a printer port (E. g. Copy c:\document1.txt lpt2 /b or dir >> lpt2). /b switch determines the binary data transfer.

Document management - Print queue

Print Queue - enables to display and work with documents sent to printer. In the print queue, there are all being printed and pending documents spooled (documents in a print queue are called print jobs; the job contains data to print and control commands).
If there appear some problems when printing, or you send a document to the printer by mistake, you do not have to turn it off. When you click on the printer icon, there appears a window which helps you to manage the print queue and work with particular print jobs.
Information about the print jobs is also important. Your document must always appear in the print queue dialog. If this does not happen, some problems were probably detected. Print jobs of small size will not stay long here - the will be displayed just for a little while. There will be following information about each print job displayed:
Document name, Status (what is now happening with the document or an error message), Owner, Number of pages, Size (if the document is more complex, it will take longer to print; you can optimize the file for lower amount of graphics and faster printing), Sent (date and time of when the job were sent to the printer), port.
Basic options for chosen jobs:

Pause - Pause print. Important in case you have to remove a jammed sheet of paper or you want to add paper into the tray. It can only be applied to one chosen job. Remaining documents will go on printing. To restore printing, choose "Continue".
Restart - prints the same document again.
Cancel - removes the job from the print queue.
Properties - displays the print queue itself, possible to change print job priority here.

"Printer" menu from the main menu provides access to other settings:
Set printer as default, Print presets, Pause printing (for all print jobs), Cancel printing of all documents, Sharing.
Use printer offline - data are taken to the print queue, but are not sent to the printer. The printer switches to this mode automatically after some problems were detected. Activation of this option is not advisable in most cases. You can deactivate it by selecting the underlined item.
Properties - printer properties settings.
Priority - here you can set up priority for jobs - after the current print job is printed, following document pending in the queue will not be printed, but the printer automatically prints the document having higher priority. The print priority has nothing in common with the printer priority.

Printing over the Internet

Administration and print can also be made through an internet browser by entering address "http://server_name/sharing_name" or "http://server_name/printers". Advantage of this type of printing is easy access to the printer from any computer in the network or from Internet. Using of browser is easier for many administrators than the classical administration. Installed IIS service on the print server is required.
Recommended browser is Internet Explorer (version ?.?? and higher). You may have problems with other browser.
If you want to connect the printer through the Internet, you must have Windows 95, 98, ME, 2000 or XP. Windows 9x needs appropriate driver on the print server and an update for print support provided by IPP (Internet Printing Protocol). They can be found on Microsoft´s sites - IPP. For this case, there appears a message saying: "The driver files are not available for the current CPU platform. Please contact your administrator to install proper driver files on the server".

Problems and advanced administration

Administration of printers, e. g. adding, removing of printers and some others can be limited by setting up the Group policy (1. User configuration - Administrative tools - Control panels - Printers; and 2. Computer configuration - Administration templates - Printers).
If there appear some inexplicable problems or a document get stuck in the queue, try to restart the Spooler service. ("Service" option or "net stop spooler" and "net start spooler").
Printer settings you can also find in register - HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Print
To administrate print jobs from the command line you can use the "net print" command. To get a survey of print jobs, use this command together with combination with the path to the printer (net print \\server_name/printer). You can also remove, pause or restart the print jobs by entering their numbers (/Delete, /Hold, /Release)
Inappropriate or not working driver - download from Internet and install it. Or remove the printer and reinstall it.
Printer has been redirected or transferred - In case of a printer failure or its transferring, printing is paused and port must be changed (change physical port, repair name for sharing).
Look for other HW problem solutions in your printer HW manual.
Incorrectly set up port (number) - Do you use LPT1, LPT2 or COM1/COM2? Most often used option is LPT1, but it is not always so.
Incorrectly set up port (BIOS) - try to modify parallel port settings - Do you use SPP, EPP or ECP? Try to find out what type of port the manufacturer recommends. Newer printers should use ECP and the older ones probably SPP.
Print not complete - in laser printers, this probably means there is not enough toner. In inkjet printers, it means not enough ink in the cartridges or dried nozzles. In dot matrix printers, there can be a problem with the ribbon or the pins.
A page is printed on several sheets - incorrect print setup or some other failure - I have encountered a problem with a scanner driver which was not uninstalled. After I disconnected the scanner, I had to face big problems with printing.
A certain documents is not printed, while the others are - the file is probably damaged. There can be a lot of solutions or even no solution: 1. Save the file under another name or format. 2. Mark the text and copy it to another file or application. 3. Try to print the file on another computer or printer. 4. Turn off and turn on the computer and the printer, too.
Sending print to LPT1 in case the printer is connected through USB - set up the printer as a network printer and map it to lpt1 (net use lpt1 \\Computer\printer)