Mac OS 7.6: About Desktop Printing Read Me

Important Information About Desktop Printing

This document contains information about using the desktop printing feature on your computer. With desktop printing, a printer icon is created on your desktop whenever you select an Apple LaserWriter or StyleWriter printer in the Chooser. You can use these "desktop printer" icons to print documents and manage printing.

With desktop printing, you can

• print a document in the Finder by dragging it to a desktop printer icon
• select the default printer without opening the Chooser
• manage and schedule printing documents

Contents of this document

Creating Desktop Printers
Printing With a Desktop Printer
Selecting a Default Printer
Working With Desktop Printer Icons
Managing Printing
Turning Off Desktop Printing
Support and Compatibility Information
Troubleshooting
Desktop PrintMonitor Software Components

IMPORTANT: Desktop printing works with Apple StyleWriter printers, Apple LaserWriter printers, and many other PostScript printers. Desktop printing does not work with other types of printers and Fax Sender.

Creating Desktop Printers

To create a desktop printer, follow these steps:

1. Open the Chooser.
2. Select the print driver for the printer you are using.
3. Select the printer you want to use.
4. Close the Chooser.

When you close the Chooser, an icon for the printer appears on the desktop. The name of the icon is the name of the printer. The name of the printer also appears in the Printer menu to the left of the Guide menu and in the Desktop Printers item in the Apple menu.

After the desktop printer icon appears, you can move it to any location on your startup disk.

You can have as many desktop printers as you want. To create other desktop printers, you must open the Chooser, select the printer, and close the Chooser for each printer you want to use.

The last printer you select in the Chooser becomes the default printer. The default printer is used whenever you choose Print from the File menu. The desktop printer icon for the default printer has a bold outline. For other ways to select the default printer, see "Selecting a Default Printer" later in this document.

NOTE: If you use different versions of the LaserWriter 8 software to print to the same printer, you can create a desktop printer icon for each version of the LaserWriter software. For example, you might use LaserWriter driver version 8.3 for printing and version 8.2.2f for faxing. To create a desktop printer for each driver, select the LaserWriter 8.3 driver and your printer in the Chooser, then close the Chooser. Reopen the Chooser and select the LaserWriter 8.2.2f driver and your printer, then close the Chooser. To choose which version of the driver to use, change the default printer (see "Selecting a Default Printer"). To avoid confusion, rename the desktop printer icons to indicate which version of the printer software the icon uses.

Printing With a Desktop Printer

You use desktop printers to print documents from the Finder. Using desktop printers, you can print several documents at the same time, including documents created with different programs. (You can still print documents from within applications using the Print command in the File menu.)

To print documents with a desktop printer, follow these steps:

1. Select the icons of the documents you want to print.
2. Drag the documents to the icon of the desktop printer you want to use.
NOTE: When you drag a document to a desktop printer, that printer becomes the default printer.

The document opens and the Print dialog box appears.

3. Choose your printing options, then click the Print.

Selecting a Default Printer

The default printer is the printer you use when you choose Print from the File menu.

To change the default printer, you can do the following:

• Print documents from the Finder with a desktop printer icon.
• Select a desktop printer icon and choose Set Default Printer from the Printing menu.
• Choose the printer from the Printer menu that appears to the left of the Guide menu.
• Select the printer name using the Printing module in the Control Strip.
• Select a new printer in the Chooser.

NOTE: Changing the printer you are using may change how much information appears on a page of your document. If you change printers, check the formatting of your document.

Working With Desktop Printer Icons

Desktop printer icons show the status of the printer:

• Plain icon indicates a printer that is not currently chosen for printing.
• Default icon indicates the printer you have currently chosen to print on.
• Printing icon indicates a document is printing on this printer.
• Stopped icon indicates you have stopped the print queue.
• Error icon indicates there is an error on this printer. Double-click the icon to see a message.
• Disabled icon indicates this desktop printer is not available.

You can rename desktop printer icons, make aliases of them, and throw them away, just like other Finder icons.

NOTE: You can't throw away a desktop printer icon while the printer is printing a document.

If you throw away the icon for the default printer, another desktop printer is automatically selected as the default printer. If you do not have another desktop printer another icon is automatically created for the desktop printer you are throwing away. To throw away the last desktop printer icon, you must select a printer in the Chooser that does not support desktop printing.

Managing Printing

If background printing is turned on for the printer you are using, you can use desktop printing to manage print jobs. You perform tasks with the Printing menu that appears when you select a desktop printer. You perform other tasks by using the desktop printer window that opens when you double-click a desktop printer icon.

To manage printing using the Printing menu:

• The Printing menu appears to the right of the Special menu when you select a desktop printer icon.

Using the Printing menu you can do the following:

• Choose Start Print Queue to restart printing.

NOTE: You need to choose Start Print Queue to restart printing if you click the Stop Queue button in a printer alert message.

• Choose Stop Print Queue to stop printing all of your documents. The icon of the printer indicates that you have stopped printing.
• Choose Get Printer Info to see information about the printer. (Only available for some printers.)
• Choose Change Setup to change the setup of the printer. (Only available for some printers. You can change the setup of other printers using the Chooser.)
• Choose Show Manual Feed Alert to turn the manual alert on or off.
• Choose Set Default Printer to select the printer as the default printer, if it isn't selected already.

To manage printing using the desktop printer window:

• Double-click a desktop printer icon to open its window.

The name of the document currently printing and status messages about the current print job appear in the upper box. The status messages can help you troubleshoot a printing problem.

When you are printing more than one document, a list of the print jobs appears in the lower box. If this list is sorted by the Print Time column, it shows the order in which the documents will be printed.

Using the desktop printer window, you can do the following tasks:

• To change the sort order of the print job list, click the title of the column by which you want to sort. The column title by which the list is sorted is underlined. For example, to sort by the name of the document, click Document Name.

Note: Changing the sort order of the print jobs does not change the order in which they will print. To see that order, click the Print Time heading.

• To cancel printing a document, select the print job in the list and click the Remove button. You can also drag the print job from the window to the Trash icon on the desktop.

Note: These methods do not delete the document itself.

• To put printing a document on hold, select the print job in the list and click the Hold Job button. You can also put the document that's currently printing on hold by dragging it to the print job list.
• To resume printing a document, select the print job and click the Resume Job button.
• To print a document immediately, select the print job and put it on hold. Next, click the Set Print Time icon button and select Urgent in the dialog box that appears, then click OK. You can also drag the print job to the top of the print job list or to the area reserved for the currently printing job.
• To schedule printing, select a print job and click the Set Print Time button. In the Set Print Time dialog box, click At Time and set the time you want. Then click OK.
• To change the print order, drag the name of a print job up or down in the print job list.
• To print the document using another desktop printer, drag the print job to the icon of the other desktop printer. That printer becomes the default printer. You can only move a print job to another printer of the same type. For example, you can't move a print job from a LaserWriter printer to a StyleWriter printer.
• To stop printing all documents, hold down the Option and Shift keys and click the Hold Job button. You can also choose Stop Print Queue from the Printing menu.
• To start printing documents, hold down the Option and Shift keys and click the Resume Job button. You can also choose Start Print Queue from the Printing menu.

Turning Off Desktop Printing

If you don't want to use desktop printers, you can turn off Desktop PrintMonitor using the Extensions Manager control panel.

IMPORTANT: Before you turn off Desktop PrintMonitor, be sure that all documents have finished printing. If there are documents waiting to print that you do not want to print, you can cancel printing as described in the previous section on this document.

To turn off Desktop PrintMonitor, follow these steps:

1. Open the Extensions Manager control panel.
2. Click the boxes next to these extensions to remove the X:

• Desktop PrintMonitor
• Desktop Printer Extension
• Desktop Printer Spooler
• Desktop Printer Menu extensions

3. Click the close box to close the control panel.
4. If your computer has a Control Strip, drag the Printer Selector file from the Control Strip Modules folder in the System Folder to the Trash.
5. Restart your computer.

Support and Compatibility Information

• Some third-party printers do not support desktop printing. If no desktop printer icon is created after you select your printer in the Chooser, it is likely that your printer does not support Desktop PrintMonitor. Please contact the vendor of your printer to see if there is a version of the print driver that is compatible with Desktop PrintMonitor.
• When you choose Save or Open in an application and look at files and folders on the desktop, desktop printers appear in the list as if they are folders. Do not save documents in a desktop printer "folder." If you do, you will not be able to access the document in the Finder.

IMPORTANT: If you save a document in a desktop printer "folder," use the Save As command to save the document in a different location as soon as possible.
NOTE: You cannot remove a document that you save in a desktop printer icon. If you want to delete the document, throw away the desktop printer icon and select the printer in the Chooser again.

• Desktop PrintMonitor supports drag-and-drop printing for all files that cause the Print command in the File menu to become available. Since clipping files do not make the Print command available, they cannot be dragged to a desktop printer icon for printing.
• Apple's Fax Sender software is not supported by Desktop PrintMonitor. Fax Sender is fully functional when Desktop PrintMonitor is installed; however, it does not use Desktop PrintMonitor's features.

IMPORTANT: When you select Fax Sender in the Chooser, you will not have a default desktop printer until you select a printer icon and choose Set Default Printer from the Printing menu.

Troubleshooting Tips

You see an alert message with error numbers "-192" or "15."

• Problem: After installing Desktop PrintMonitor and restarting your computer, you see error message "-192" or "15" when you try to open files or folders in the Finder. This may occur when the Now Startup Manager preferences file has become corrupted.
• Solution: Hold down the Shift key while restarting your computer to turn off extensions. Then throw away the Now Startup Manager preferences file. Restart your computer normally.
  IMPORTANT: Before you throw away the Now Startup Manager preferences file, you may want to write down your preferences.

You receive an alert message that the desktop printer cannot be found.

• Problem: When you try to print, the spool file for the print job is moved to the Trash and an alert message appears saying that the desktop printer could not be found.
• Solution 1: It's possible that the desktop printer icon is damaged. To fix this, drag the desktop printer icon to the Trash and reselect the printer in the Chooser. A new desktop printer icon will be created.
• Solution 2: If your printer software is not published by Apple Computer or Adobe Systems, it may not be compatible with Desktop PrintMonitor. If this is the case, turn off Desktop PrintMonitor (as described earlier in this document) and use an older version of PrintMonitor.

The "Not enough memory" message appears after you drag files to a desktop printer icon.

• Problem: When you drag documents created by different software applications to your desktop printer icon, a message appears that says there is not enough memory to continue.
• Solution: Because the application used to create a document opens when you print the document, your computer must have enough random-access memory (RAM) available to open all of the programs for the documents you are printing. To resolve this situation, print your documents individually or in smaller groups.

The "Out of Paper" message remains after you add paper to the printer.

• Problem: You are using a LaserWriter 300 and the "Out of Paper" message doesn't go away automatically after you add paper to the printer.
• Solution: If you are using Desktop PrintMonitor with the LaserWriter 300 driver, the "Out of Paper" message will not go away automatically after you add paper to the printer. The only way to work around this problem is to turn off Desktop PrintMonitor as described earlier in this document and use an older version of PrintMonitor.

A document printed on a Color StyleWriter does not have the correct colors.

• Problem: Documents printed on a Color StyleWriter do not have the correct colors after you put printing on hold and then resumed printing.
• Solution: To avoid this problem, always resume printing on page one.