Printing from Your Applications

When you print from Windows applications, the internal Print Manager kicks in and spools the print job for you, adding it to the queue for the selected printer. The spooler then feeds the file to the assigned printer(s), coordinating the flow of data and keeping you informed of the progress. Jobs are queued up and listed in the given printer's window, from which their status can be observed; they can be rearranged, deleted, and so forth. All the rights and privileges assigned to you, as the user, are applicable, potentially allowing you to alter the queue (as discussed later in this tutorial), rearranging, deleting, pausing, or restarting print jobs.

If the application doesn't provide a way to select a specific printer (typically through a Print Setup dialog box), then the default printer is used. You can select a default printer from the Devices and Printers window by right-clicking a printer's icon and choosing Set As Default Printer.

Tip As a shortcut, to print a document, in many cases you can simply right-click it in any Windows Explorer view and select Print. The document must have an association linking the filename extension (for example, .doc or .bmp) to an application that handles that file type, and the application has to support printing this way for this to work. Also, you won't have the option of setting printing options. The default settings are used.

The rest of this tutorial deals mostly with how to work with the printer queues of your own workstation printer or of network printers, and how to alter, pause, delete, or restart print jobs.

No Output from Printer

If your print jobs never make it out the other end of the printer, open the Devices and Printers window and work through this checklist:

• First, ask yourself whether you printed to the correct printer. Check to see whether your default printer is the one from which you are expecting output. If you're on a LAN, you can easily switch default printers and then forget that you made the switch.
• Right-click the printer icon and see whether the option Use Printer Online appears. If it does, select this item.
• Check to see whether the printer you've chosen is actually powered up, online, and ready to roll.
• If you're using a network printer, check whether the station serving the printer is powered up and ready to serve print jobs.
• Then check the cabling. Is it tight?
• Does the printer need ink, toner, or paper? Are any error lights or other indicators on the printer itself flashing or otherwise indicating an error, such as a paper jam?
• Are you printing from an MS-DOS application? You may need to use the net use command to redirect an LPT port to your Windows printer. See "Printing from DOS Applications" earlier in this tutorial for more information.
• If all else fails, restart Windows. It's sad that we have to suggest this, but it sometimes does bring a zombie printer back to life.

Printer Produces Garbled Text

If your printed pages contain a lot of garbled text or weird symbols, check the following:

• You might have the wrong driver installed. Run the print test page and see whether it works. Open the Devices and Printers window (by choosing Start, Devices and Printers), open the printer's Properties dialog box, and print a test page. If that works, you're halfway home. If it doesn't, try removing the printer and reinstalling it. Right-click the printer icon in the Devices and Printers window and choose Delete. Then add the printer again, and try printing.
• If the printer uses plug-in font cartridges, you also might have the wrong font cartridge installed in the printer, or your text might be formatted with the wrong font.
• Some printers have emulation modes that might conflict with one another. Check the manual. You may think you're printing to a PostScript printer, but the printer could be in an HP emulation mode; in this case, your driver is sending PostScript, and the printer is expecting PCL.