13.1.1 Printers

Learn the printing process

Print Spooler

As soon as a print command is received by the system from a program, a new print job is created and picked up by the print spooler. The print spooler manages all the print jobs and acts as the primary component in the Windows printing architecture.

Print Driver

The print driver is important software that helps application programs to communicate to a connected printer. It converts print data into a language format printers understand, which is necessary since different printers use different printer languages.

• Adobe PostScript (PS)
• HP Printer Control Language (PCL)
• Epson Standard Code (ESC)
• Portable Document Format (PDF) THE GOAT
• Page Description Language (PDL)
• Microsoft XML Paper Specification (XPS) This is why it's also important to have the right driver installed for your OS and device model. It's also important to keep print drivers up to date.

A rendering module converts graphics and print settings, and a configuration module communicates info about the printer, like the paper and ink supply levels. After these steps, the spooler takes over control of the print job once again.

Finish Spooling

At this step the computer will reach out to the printer and sends out the job (if found & connected). However, if the printer is off or is otherwise busy, the system stores your print job in something called a print queue.

The print queue temporarily stores a list of all the jobs that need to be completed once the printer is online on the hard drive. You can manage the print queue list through the Print Management console.

Pooling

This is a feature you can enable on printers. What printer pooling does is setup two different printers that are on different ports and use them as if they were one device. This parallelizes print jobs, increasing efficiency (especially if you're printing a lot of stuff).

Spooling

When spooling is enabled for a printer, it takes jobs before they're sent to the printer and saves them on the hard disk drive. This allows multiple people to send print jobs to the same printer, even at the same time.

In other words, it's just queueing. You can access the print queue by navigating to: Settings > Bluetooth & devices > Printers & scanners > [your printer] > Open print queue

Secured Prints (Raw Lesson Content)

Increase the physical security of printers to prevent document snooping, document theft, unauthorized access to documents, or misuse of the printer's internet connections. Action you can take include:

• Buy printers that require users provide a PIN before a print job prints.
• Shred sensitive printouts no longer needed.
• Wipe all documents, scans, and faxes from the printer's internal hard drive before disposing of an old or broken printer.

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