Between the moment you click OK in the Print dialog box and the arrival of the first page in the printer’s tray, there’s a delay. Usually, it’s brief, but when you’re printing a complex document with lots of graphics, the delay can be considerable.
Fortunately, the waiting doesn’t necessarily make you less productive, since you can return to work on your PC, or even quit the application and go watch TV. An invisible program called the print spooler supervises this background printing process. The spooler collects the document that’s being sent to the printer, along with all the codes the printer expects to receive, and then sends this information, little by little, to the printer.
Note
The spooler program creates huge temporary printer files, so a hard drive that’s nearly full can wreak havoc with background printing.
To see the list of documents waiting to be printed—the ones that have been stored by the spooler—open the Devices and Printers window, right-click your printer’s icon, and then choose “See what’s printing” to open its window.
Tip
While the printer is printing, a printer icon appears in the notification area. As a shortcut to opening the printer’s window, just double-click that icon.
The printer’s window lists the documents currently printing and waiting; this list is called the print queue (or just the queue), as shown in Figure 19-7. (Documents in the list print in top-to-bottom order.)
Figure 19-7. By right-clicking documents in this list, you can pause or cancel any document in the queue—or all of them at once.
You can manipulate documents in a print queue in any of the following ways during printing:
Put one on hold. To pause a document (put it on hold), right-click its name, and then choose Pause from the shortcut menu (Figure 19-7). When you’re ready to let the paused document continue to print, right-click its listing and choose Resume.
Put them all on hold. To pause the printer, choose Printer→Pause Printing from the window’s menu bar. You might do this when, for example, you need to change the paper in the printer’s tray. (Choose Printer→Pause Printing again when you want the printing to pick up from where it left off.)
Add another one. As noted earlier, you can drag any document icon directly from its disk or folder window into the printer queue. Its name joins the list of printouts-in-waiting.
Cancel one. To cancel a printout, click its name and then press the Delete key. If you click Yes in the confirmation box, the document disappears from the queue; it’ll never print out. (Or right-click it and choose Cancel from the shortcut menu.)
Cancel all of them. To cancel the printing of all the documents in the queue, choose Printer→Cancel All Documents.
Rearrange them. To rearrange the printing order, start by right-clicking the name of one of the printouts-in-waiting; from the shortcut menu, choose Properties. On the General tab, drag the Priority slider left or right. Documents with higher priorities print first.