Mac OS X: The Missing Manual, Panther Edition

Managing Printouts

After you’ve used the Print command, you can either sit there until the paper emerges from the printer, or you can manage the printouts-in-waiting. That option is attractive primarily to people who do a lot of printing, have connections to a lot of printers, or share printers with many other people.

Start by opening Printer Setup Utility. In the list of printers, the Status column shows which printers are busy. Double-click a printer’s name to see something like Figure 13-4; namely, the printouts that will soon be sliding out of your printer appear in a tidy list.

Here are some of the ways in which you can control these waiting printouts, which Apple collectively calls the print queue:

• Delete them. By clicking an icon, or -clicking several and then clicking the Delete toolbar button, you remove items from the list of waiting printouts. Now they won’t print.

• Pause them. By highlighting a printout and then clicking the Hold button, you pause that printout. It won’t print out until you highlight it again and click the Resume button. This pausing business could be useful when, for example, you need time to check or refill the printer, or when you’re just about to print your resignation as your boss drops by to offer you a promotion.

  Tip

  If you pause one printout, the others lined up behind it will continue to print.

• Halt them all. You can stop all printouts from a specific ...