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Lesson 2: Managing Printers

Managing printers includes assigning forms to paper trays and setting a separator page. In addition, you can pause, resume, and cancel a document if a problem occurs on a print device. If a print device is faulty or you add print devices to your network, you might need to redirect documents to a different printer. In addition, you might need to change who has administrative responsibility for printers, which involves changing ownership.

After this lesson, you will be able to

• Assign forms to paper trays.
• Set a separator page.
• Pause, resume, and cancel documents on a printer.
• Redirect documents to a different printer.
• Take ownership of a printer.

Estimated lesson time: 30 minutes

Assigning Forms to Paper Trays

If a print device has multiple trays that regularly hold different paper sizes, you can assign a form to a specific tray. A form defines a paper size. Users can then select the paper size from within their application. When the user prints, Windows 2000 automatically routes the print job to the paper tray that holds the correct form. Examples of forms include the following: Legal, A4, Envelope #10, and Letter Small.

You can assign a form to a paper tray as follows:

1. Right-click the icon of the appropriate printing device, and then click Properties.
2. In the Properties dialog box for the printer, click the Device Settings tab.
3. In the drop-down list box next to each paper tray, click the form for the tray's paper type, as shown in Figure 13.3.
4. Click OK.

After you have set up a paper tray, users specify the paper size from within applications. Windows 2000 knows in which paper tray the form is located.

Figure 13.3 Setting forms for a printer

Setting a Separator Page

A separator page is a file that contains print device commands. Separator pages have two functions:

• To identify and separate printed documents.
• To switch print devices between print modes. Some print devices can switch between print modes that take advantage of different device features. You can use separator pages to specify the correct page description language. For example, you can specify PostScript or Printer Control Language (PCL) for a print device that can switch between different print modes but cannot automatically detect which language a print job uses.

Windows 2000 includes four separator page files. They are located in the systemroot\System32 folder. Table 13.2 lists the filename and describes the function for each of the included separator page files.

Table 13.2 Separator Page Files

Once you have decided to use a separator page and have chosen an appropriate one, you use the Advanced tab in the printer's Properties dialog box to have the separator page printed at the beginning of each print job.

You can set up a separator page as follows:

1. On the Advanced tab in the Properties dialog box for the printer, click Separator Page.
2. In the Separator Page box, type the name of the separator page file. You can also browse for the file.
3. Click OK, and then click OK again.

Pausing and resuming a printer or canceling all documents on a printer might be necessary if a printing problem occurs.

To pause or cancel all documents, right-click a printing device in the Printers folder, and then click the appropriate command. To resume printing, right-click the printer, and click Pause Printer to deselect it.

Table 13.3 describes the tasks that you might perform when you manage printers, how to perform the tasks, and examples of situations in which you might perform these tasks.

Table 13.3 Managing Printers Tasks

NOTE

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You can also pause a printer by taking the printer offline. When you take a printer offline, documents stay in the print queue, even when the print server is shut down and then restarted. To take a printer offline, open the printer's window and on the Printer menu, click Use Printer Offline.

Redirecting Documents to a Different Printer

You can redirect documents to a different printer. For example, if a printer is connected to a faulty print device, redirect the documents so that users don't need to resubmit them. You can redirect all print jobs for a printer, but you can't redirect specific documents. The new printer must use the same printer driver as the current printer.

You can redirect documents to a different printer as follows:

1. Open the Printers window, right-click the printer, and then click Properties.
2. In the Properties dialog box, click the Ports tab.
3. Click Add Port.
4. In the Available Port Types list, click Local Port, and then click the New Port button.
5. In the Port Name dialog box, in the Enter A Port Name box, type the UNC name for the printer to which you are redirecting documents (for example, \\prntsrv6\HPLaser5), as shown in Figure 13.4.
6. Click OK to close the Port Name dialog box.
7. Click Close to close the Printer Ports dialog box.
8. Click Close to close the printer's Properties dialog box.

If another print device is available for the current print server, you can continue to use the same printer and configure the printer to use the other print device. To configure a printer to use another local or network print device that uses the same printer driver, select the appropriate port on the print server and cancel the selection of the current port.

Figure 13.4 Redirecting documents to another printer

Taking Ownership of a Printer

Sometimes, the owner of a printer can no longer manage that printer and you will need to take ownership. Taking ownership of a printer enables you to change administrative responsibility for a printer. By default, the user who installed the printer owns it. If that user can no longer administer the printer, you should take ownership of it—for example, if the current owner leaves the company.

The following users can take ownership of a printer:

• A user or a member of a group who has the Manage Printers permission for the printer.
• Members of the Administrators and Power Users groups. By default, these groups have the Manage Printers permission, which allows them to take ownership.

You can take ownership of a printer as follows:

1. In the Properties dialog box for the printer, click the Security tab, and then click Advanced.
2. In the Access Control Settings dialog box, click the Owner tab, and then click your user account under Change Owner To, as shown in Figure 13.5.

NOTE

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If you are a member of the Administrators group and you want the Administrators group to take ownership of the printer, click the Administrators group.

3. Click OK, and then click Close.

Figure 13.5 Taking ownership of a printer

Practice: Performing Printer Management

In this practice, you will perform three tasks that are part of managing printers. In the first exercise, you will assign forms to paper trays. In the second exercise, you will set up a separator page. In the third exercise, you will learn how to take ownership of a printer.

Exercise 1: Assigning Forms to Paper Trays

In this exercise, you will assign a paper type (form) to a paper tray so that when users print to a specified form, the print job is automatically routed to and adjusted for the correct tray.

1. Click Start, point to Settings, and select Printers.
2. Right-click the icon for your printer, and then click Properties.
3. In the Properties dialog box, click the Device Settings tab.

Notice that there are multiple selections under Form To Tray Assignment. Some of the selections are labeled Not Available because they depend on options that aren't installed.

4. Click Lower Paper Tray, and then select Legal.

Whenever a user prints on legal size paper, Windows 2000 will instruct the printer to use paper from the lower paper tray.

5. Click Apply and leave the Properties dialog box open for the next exercise.

In this exercise, you will set up a separator page to print between documents. This separator page includes the user's name and the date and time that the document was printed.

1. Click the Advanced tab of the Properties dialog box.
2. Click Separator Page.

The Separator Page dialog box appears.

3. In the Separator Page dialog box, click Browse.

Windows 2000 displays another Separator Page dialog box.

4. Select Sysprint.sep, and then click Open.

The selected separator page file's path appears in the first Separator Page dialog box.

5. Click OK.

Windows 2000 will now print a separator page between print jobs.

6. Leave the Properties dialog box open for the next exercise.

In this exercise, you will practice taking ownership of a printer.

1. Click the Security tab of the Properties dialog box.
2. On the Security tab, click Advanced, and then click the Owner tab.

Who currently owns the printer?

Answer

3. To take ownership of the printer, select another user in the Name box.
4. If you actually wanted to take ownership, you would click Apply now, but click Cancel instead to leave the ownership unchanged.
5. Click OK to close the Properties dialog box, close the Printers window, and then log off Windows 2000.

In this lesson, you learned that managing printers includes assigning forms to paper trays; setting a separator page; pausing, resuming, and canceling documents on a printer; redirecting documents to a different printer; and taking ownership of a printer. In the practice portion, you assigned a form to a paper tray and set up a separator page. In addition, you learned how to change who has administrative responsibility for printers, which involves changing ownership.