Managing Print Jobs

The print queue for a printer contains all the documents that are currently printing or waiting to print. Figure 34.2 shows an example where we’ve already told Windows to print two documents. The first document we sent (which happens to be the document listed on the bottom of the list in this example) is currently printing. The other is waiting in line for its turn.

FIGURE 34.2 Sample documents in a print queue

Managing a single document

To pause or cancel a specific print job, right-click its line in the print queue and choose one of the following options from the shortcut menu that appears:

• Pause: Stops printing the document until you restart it.
• Restart: Restarts the paused print job.
• Cancel: Cancels the print job so that it doesn’t print and removes the job from the print queue.
• Properties: Provides detailed information about the print job. You can also set the document’s priority. The higher the priority, the more likely the print job is to cut in line ahead of other documents waiting to be printed.

Managing several documents

To pause, restart, or cancel several documents in the queue, select their icons. For example, click the first job you want to change. Then, hold down the Shift key and select the last one. Optionally, you can select (or deselect) icons by holding down the Ctrl key as you click. Then, right-click any selected item, or choose Document from the menu bar, and choose an action. The action will be applied to all selected icons.

Managing all documents

You can use commands on the print queue’s Printer menu, shown in Figure 34.3, to manage all the documents in the queue without selecting any items first. The following options apply to all documents:

FIGURE 34.3 Printer menu in the print queue

• Pause Printing: Pause the current print job and all those waiting in line. See the section “Printing Offline” later in this chapter for an example of when this would be useful.
• Cancel All Documents: You guessed it — this cancels the current print job and all those waiting to be printed.

Changing print queue order

In the print queue, you can change the order in which documents in the queue will print. For example, if you need a printout right now, and there’s a long line of documents waiting ahead of yours, you can give your document a higher priority so it prints sooner. In other words, your print job gets to cut in line ahead of others.

To change an item in the print queue’s priority, right-click the item in the queue and choose Properties. On the General tab of the dialog box that opens, drag the Priority slider, shown in Figure 34.4, to the right. The farther you drag, the higher your document’s priority. Click OK. Your document won’t stop the document that’s currently printing, but it may well be the next one to print.

FIGURE 34.4 Priority slider in a print queue item’s Properties dialog box

You can close the print queue as you would any other window — by clicking the Close button on the upper-right corner or by choosing Printer Close from the menu bar. To get help with the print queue while it’s open, choose Help from the menu bar.