Each printer that has been added to the printer list has a Print Queue. A Print Queue is a
temporary storage location that is used when you print to a printer. When you print to a
printer, the information is sent to the Print Queue, where it waits until the printer is ready
before sending the information to the printer.
If you send multiple files to the printer or if
multiple users print to the printer at the same time, the print files wait in the Print Queue
until the printer is finished processing the last job and then releases the next file in the queue
for printing.
1. If the Print & Fax preference pane isn’t open, choose System Preferences from the Apple
menu and press the Print & Fax button to display the Print & Fax preference pane.
2. Select a printer in the Printers list and press the Open Print Queue button in the main
area of the Print & Fax preference pane. The Print Queue for the selected printer
is displayed.
3. Confirm that the printer is working by printing a test page. From the Printer menu,
choose Print Test Page.
Selecting Print Test Page with the Print Queue
4. A print file is added to the Print Queue and the status of the current page is displayed.
After printing a test page, the file is added to the Print Queue and the status is displayed.
Managing the Print Queue
The Print Queue allows you to manage jobs that are sent to the printer for maximum
efficiency.
1. Press the Pause Printer button in the toolbar of the Print Queue window. Users can still
print to the printer; however, they will wait in the Print Queue because it is paused.
2. Launch the Safari Web browser and go to www.apple.com.
3. Choose File > Print.
4. Make sure that the printer of the Print Queue that you paused in step 1. above is selected,
and click the Print button. You see a window indicating that the printer has been paused;
click the Add to Queue button.
5. Go to www.digitalclassroombooks.com and repeat steps 2. and 3. above.
6. Go to www.agitraining.com and repeat steps 2. and 3. above.
7. Quit Safari.
8. In the Print Queue window, you can see that there are three jobs on hold in the queue
to be printed and they are ordered from top to bottom in the list. Select the Apple print
job and press the On Hold button in the toolbar. The status of the job to the left of the
job name now indicates that the job is on hold.
9. You’ve decided that you no longer need to print the AGI training web site, the last one
in the list. Select that job, and press the Delete button in the toolbar to remove it from
the queue.
The Print Queue allows you to hold and delete jobs for better control of what is printed on the printer.
If you prefer not to print any jobs on your printer, do not perform steps 10. and 11. below. Instead,
simply select each print job in the Print Queue and click the Delete button in the toolbar.
10. Press the Resume Printer button in the toolbar to put the printer online. Printing
begins. Because the Apple print job was put on hold, the Digital Classroom Books job
begins printing.
11. To resume printing of the Apple job, select the job in the Print Queue and press the
Resume button in the toolbar. The Apple job will begin printing after the Digital
Classroom job is finished.
12. If you decide at any time that you prefer not to print a job that is sent to the printer,
simply select each job in the Print Queue window and press Delete in the toolbar.
Conserving Ink
Modern inkjet printers operate by applying very small droplets of ink to a substrate (i.e. paper,
mylar, CD/DVD) during the printing process. In order to replicate the intended color, the
printer will mix varying amounts of cyan, magenta, yellow, black, and sometimes additional
colors such as light cyan and light magenta ink to achieve that intended color.
Believe it or not, even when you print a document that is black only, many modern inkjet
printers will reproduce that black color using combinations of all inks in the printer. This wastes
valuable and often expensive ink that could be used for printing color documents on your
printer. Many users have experienced the need to replace their color ink cartridges when all
they ever print is black only documents.
Most print drivers will have an option available that allows you to print using only black ink
when desired. This setting usually is found under the color setting of the Print dialog and will
be listed as black only or grayscale. Choosing this option will usually tell the printer to use only
black ink instead of a combination of all inks in the printer saving those color inks for when you
actually need them.
Printing to a PDF file
In addition to printing jobs to a physical printer, you can also print jobs to a PDF file. PDF
stands for Portable Document Format and is probably the most widely used format for
distributing files electronically. Snow Leopard operating system gives you this capability right out of the box
and allows you to print virtually any file to a PDF file. A PDF file is useful if you want to send
someone a document that is currently in a format that the other person may not be able to
read.
For instance, let’s say you have a Microsoft Word file but someone who you want to send
the file to doesn’t own Microsoft Word and therefore cannot open it. Printing the Word file to
a PDF file allows them to read the file. If they are using a Mac, they can open the file using the
included Preview application. Otherwise, they can download the free Adobe Reader for any platform (Mac, Windows, Linux, and so on), which provides the
ability to read the PDF file.
A PDF file can also be useful if you want to look at the contents of a web site when you’re
traveling or don’t have an Internet connection. Simply make a PDF of the web site, and you
can look at it anytime and anywhere. In this exercise, you’ll make a PDF file of the Digital
Classroom Books web site for later viewing.
1. Open Safari and go to www.digitalclassroombooks.com.
2. Choose File > Print to open the print dialog.
3. Press the PDF button in the lower-left corner of the print dialog. Several options are
listed in this menu that allow you to perform specific tasks with the PDF document.
Choose Save as PDF. The Save window appears.
4. Click the blue triangle next to the Save As field to expand the window.
5. In Save As text field, type DCBooks and click Desktop in the Sidebar to indicate where
the PDF file will be saved.
Printer pools
If you work in an environment where there are several printers on which to print your
documents, you may want to consider printer pools. Printer pools allow you to group several
printers together so that when you send a document to the pool, the first available printer is
used to print your document. Let’s say that a coworker or household member just sent a 30-
page document to the printer.
That printer will be tied up for quite a long time; however, you
may not be aware that the printer is in use. So if you send your job to the same printer, you’ll
have to wait until the 30-page document is finished printing before your document prints. With
printer pools, you group several printers together so that your job is sent to the printer that
currently is not busy, thereby printing your job sooner with no hassles. In this exercise, you’ll
add the same printer that you added earlier in this article to gain an understanding of how
printer pools work. If you have two printers at your disposal, you can create a printer pool using
those printers. | 
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