Chapter 12 Managing Printing MICROSOFT EXAM OBJECTIVES COVERED IN THIS CHAPTER Connect to local and network print devices. Manage printers and print jobs. Control access to printers by using permissions. Connect to a local print device. Copyright © 2000 SYBEX Inc., Alameda, CA. www.sybex.com O ne common network management task is setting up and using printers. To manage printing, you need an understanding of the print- ing process and the terminology associated with the process. The process of creating, managing, and deleting printers is fairly easy. When you create printers, you use a Wizard, which leads you through each step of the configuration. Anything that is not configured through the Add Printer Wizard can be configured through the printer’s properties. You can also manage printing options such as pausing and deleting print jobs for the entire printer or for specific print documents. In this chapter, you will learn the basics of Windows 2000 Professional printing, how to set up and configure printers, and how to manage printers and print jobs. The printing processes used by Windows 2000 Server and Windows 2000 Pro- fessional are the same. Reviewing Printing Basics B efore you learn about the specifics of Windows 2000 printing, you should have an understanding of basic network printing principles. Table 12.1 defines the terms that relate to network printing, and the following sections describe the printing process and the roles of print devices and printers. Copyright © 2000 SYBEX Inc., Alameda, CA. www.sybex.com Reviewing Printing Basics 547 TABLE 12.1 Windows 2000 Printing Terminology Term Definition Printer The software interface between the physical printer (the print device) and the operating system. You can create printers through the Printers folder. This is also referred to as a logical printer . Print device The actual physical printer or hardware device that produces the printed output. Print server The computer on which the printer has been defined. When you send a job to a network printer, you are ac- tually sending it to the print server first. Print spooler A directory or folder on the print server that stores the print jobs until they can be printed. Your print server and print spooler must have enough hard disk space to hold all of the print jobs that could be pend- ing at any given time. This is also referred to as a print queue . Print processor The process that determines whether or not a print job needs further processing once that job has been sent to the spooler. The processing (also called ren- dering ) is used to format the print job so that it can print correctly at the print device. Printer pool A configuration that allows you to use one printer for multiple print devices. A printer pool is useful when you have multiple printers that use the same print driver and are in the same location. By using printer pools, users can send their print jobs to the first available printer. Print driver The specific software that understands your print de- vice. Each print device has its own command set, and each print device has an associated print driver. Physical port The port through which a printer is directly connect- ed to a computer, either a serial (COM) or parallel (LPT) port. Copyright © 2000 SYBEX Inc., Alameda, CA. www.sybex.com 548 Chapter 12 Managing Printing Reviewing the Windows 2000 Printing Process Printing is a common problem area in many networks. To troubleshoot the problems related to the Windows 2000 printing process, you need to under- stand the steps involved in the process. A simple overview of the printing process is illustrated in Figure 12.1. FIGURE 12.1 A simple overview of the Windows 2000 printing process Logical port The port through which a printer with a network card is attached to a network. Logical ports are much faster than physical ports . They also are not restricted by parallel and serial cable distance limitations, which apply to printers connected to a PC’s parallel or serial port. Local printer A printer that uses a physical port and that has not been shared. If a printer is defined as local, the only users who can use the printer are the local users of the computer that the printer is attached to. Network printer A printer that is available to local and network users. A network printer can use either a physical or logical port. TABLE 12.1 Windows 2000 Printing Terminology (continued) Term Definition Client 1. Client creates document. 3. Print job is sent to spooler. 4. Job is sent to print device. 2. Client connects to network printer (downloads print driver). Print Server Logical Printer Print Driver Print Device Copyright © 2000 SYBEX Inc., Alameda, CA. www.sybex.com Reviewing Printing Basics 549 The following steps are involved in the printing process: 1. From the client, the user chooses to print. On any Windows platform, the print request is passed to the Graphics Device Interface (GDI) . The GDI calls the print driver . If the user is accessing the printer for the first time, the print driver is loaded into the client’s memory from the print server . The print driver will stay in memory until the computer is turned off or a newer print driver is detected on the print server. The GDI is also responsible for processing print jobs for the appropriate print device . 2. The print job is sent to the computer’s local print spooler , which in turn sends the job over the network to the print server. 3. The router at the print server receives the print job. 4. The router passes the print job to the print spooler on the print server, which spools the print job to a disk. 5. The print processor on the spooler analyzes the print job. If the job needs any further processing, the print processor processes the job so that the job will print correctly. 6. If specified, the separator page processor adds a separator page to the front of the print job. 7. The print job is passed to the print manager, which determines when the job should print and directs the print job to the correct port. 8. The print job goes to the print device, and the job prints. In order to print to a printer, you must have that printer’s driver to tell the application how to send the print job. Windows 2000 Professional clients automatically download the print driver from the print server each time they send a print job. If the print driver is updated on the print server, the next time the user sends a job to the printer, the driver is automatically updated. With Windows 2000 Professional, you can also specify drivers for automatic download for other Windows clients. See the “Sharing Properties” section later in this chapter for details. Copyright © 2000 SYBEX Inc., Alameda, CA. www.sybex.com 550 Chapter 12 Managing Printing Understanding the Roles of Print Devices and Printers A print device is the actual physical printer or hardware device that does the printing. In Windows 2000 terminology, a printer is the software interface between the print device and the operating system. When you set up your computer or your network, you can determine how many print devices you have by counting the devices you can see and touch. Printers are a bit trickier to enumerate, because you can configure them in several ways: One printer per print device One printer for multiple print devices, called printer pooling Multiple printers for a single print device, a configuration usually set up to allow print scheduling You’ll learn how to configure printer pools and set up print scheduling (by configuring the printer’s availability) in the “Managing Printer Proper- ties” section later in this chapter. Setting Up Printers B efore you can access your physical print device under Windows 2000 Professional, you must first create a logical printer. To create a printer, you use the Add Printer Wizard, which guides you through all of the steps. In order to create a new printer in Windows 2000 Professional, you must be logged on as a member of the Administrators or Power Users group. Microsoft Exam Objective Connect to local and network print devices. Manage printers and print jobs. Copyright © 2000 SYBEX Inc., Alameda, CA. www.sybex.com Setting Up Printers 551 This chapter covers the material related to managing printing for the “Con- nect to local and network print devices” objective. The subobjective for connecting to an Internet printer is covered in Chapter 13, “Dial-Up Network- ing and Internet Productivity.” The computer on which you run the Add Printer Wizard and create the printer automatically becomes the print server for that printer. As the print server, the computer must have enough processing power to support incom- ing print jobs and enough disk space to hold all of the print jobs that will be queued. To create a new local printer or network printer , take the following steps: 1. Select Start Settings Printers to open the Printers folder, as shown in Figure 12.2. Then double-click the Add Printer icon. FIGURE 12.2 The Printers folder with the Add Printer icon Copyright © 2000 SYBEX Inc., Alameda, CA. www.sybex.com 552 Chapter 12 Managing Printing 2. The Add Printer Wizard starts, as shown in Figure 12.3. Click the Next button to continue. FIGURE 12.3 The Welcome to the Add Printer Wizard dialog box 3. The Local or Network Printer dialog box appears, as shown in Fig- ure 12.4. Choose Local Printer if you have a printer directly attached to computer, or choose Network Printer if you have a printer attached to a network. Then click the Next button. If you have a Plug-and-Play print device attached to your computer, it should be automatically detected, and you can skip to step 6. If your print device is not attached or recognized, deselect the Auto- matically Detect and Install My Plug and Play Printer option and continue with the following steps to manually specify the print device configuration. Copyright © 2000 SYBEX Inc., Alameda, CA. www.sybex.com Setting Up Printers 553 FIGURE 12.4 The Local or Network Printer dialog box 4. If you chose to manually configure a print device, the Select the Printer Port dialog box appears, as shown in Figure 12.5. Specify the port the print device will use and then click the Next button. FIGURE 12.5 The Select the Printer Port dialog box Copyright © 2000 SYBEX Inc., Alameda, CA. www.sybex.com 554 Chapter 12 Managing Printing If you have already installed this driver on your computer, the dialog box that lists the printer manufacturers and models will also include a Windows Update button next to the Have Disk button. 5. A dialog box that lists printer manufacturers and models appears, as shown in Figure 12.6. Specify the print device manufacturer and model and then click the Next button. If the print device is not listed, click the Have Disk button and insert the disk that contains the driver that came with your print device. FIGURE 12.6 Selecting the printer manufacturer and model 6. The Name Your Printer dialog box appears, as shown in Figure 12.7. Accept the default name or enter another name for your printer and click the Next button. Copyright © 2000 SYBEX Inc., Alameda, CA. www.sybex.com [...]... features: Color printing support Double-sided printing support Stapling support The maximum number of pages that can be printed per minute (ppm) The maximum resolution for the printer, in dots per inch (dpi) At the bottom of the dialog box, you see the Printing Preferences and Print Test Page buttons Their functions are described in the following sections Setting Printing Preferences Clicking the Printing. .. www.sybex.com 574 Chapter 12 Managing Printing In the Advanced tab, you can leave the Start Printing Immediately option selected, or you can choose the Start Printing After Last Page Is Spooled option If you choose the latter option, a smaller print job that finishes spooling first will print before your print job, even if your job started spooling before it did If you specify Start Printing Immediately,... 2000 SYBEX Inc., Alameda, CA www.sybex.com 564 Chapter 12 Managing Printing 970Cse printer, you can configure Paper Source, Media, Quality Settings, and Color options, as shown in Figure 12.15 FIGURE 12.15 The Paper/Quality tab of the Printing Preferences dialog box Advanced Settings Clicking the Advanced button in the lower-right corner of the Printing Preferences dialog box brings up the Advanced Options... option and was able to identify the offender through the owner attribute of the file Printing Defaults The Printing Defaults button in the lower-left corner of the Advanced tab calls up the Printing Preferences dialog box (see Figure 12.14, earlier in the chapter) This is the same dialog box that appears when you click the Printing Preferences button in the General tab of the printer Properties dialog box,... Control Language), which is a common printing standard pscript.sep Does not send a separator page, but switches the computer to PostScript printing mode sysprint.sep Used by PostScript printers to send a separator page sysprintj.sep Same as sysprint.sep, but with support for Japanese characters Copyright © 2000 SYBEX Inc., Alameda, CA www.sybex.com 578 Chapter 12 Managing Printing You can also create custom... in a queue before they are sent to the printer Consider spooling as the traffic controller of printing it keeps all of the print jobs from trying to print at the same time By default, spooling is enabled, with printing beginning immediately Your other option is to wait until the last page is spooled before printing An analogy for these choices is the actions you can take in a grocery store cashier line... Comment text box Click the Next button 9 In the next dialog box, select the No radio button to skip printing a test page and click the Next button 10 In the Completing the Add Printer Wizard dialog box, click the Finish button Copyright © 2000 SYBEX Inc., Alameda, CA www.sybex.com 560 Chapter 12 Managing Printing EXERCISE 12.1 (continued) Adding the Second Printer 1 In the Printers folder, double-click... printer Properties dialog box, shown in Figure 12.13, contains information about the printer It also lets you set printing preferences and print test pages FIGURE 12.13 The General tab of the printer Properties dialog box Copyright © 2000 SYBEX Inc., Alameda, CA www.sybex.com 562 Chapter 12 Managing Printing The name of the printer, the location of the printer, and comments about the printer shown here reflect... are using Copyright © 2000 SYBEX Inc., Alameda, CA www.sybex.com Managing Printer Properties FIGURE 12.16 565 The Advanced Options dialog box Printing a Test Page The Print Test Page button at the bottom of the General tab of the printer Properties tab allows you to print a test page This option is especially useful in troubleshooting printing problems For example, you might use the Print Test Page... dialog box, select the Do Not Share This Printer radio button and click the Next button 8 In the Print Test Page dialog box, select No to skip printing a test page and click the Next button 9 In the Completing the Add Printer Wizard dialog box, click the Finish button Managing Printer Properties P rinter properties allow you to configure options such as the printer name, whether or not the printer is shared, . Alameda, CA. www.sybex.com 548 Chapter 12 Managing Printing Reviewing the Windows 2000 Printing Process Printing is a common problem area in many networks Reviewing Printing Basics B efore you learn about the specifics of Windows 2000 printing, you should have an understanding of basic network printing