Troubleshooting Print Devices Lesson 005: Print Job Issues

What does print job issues encompass?

Print monitor, print queue, print spooler, and print driver.

Print Monitor

Software used to transmit print jobs to the printer while also providing status information to the user.

In what environment are print monitors usually not necessaary?

Windows.

In what cases are print monitors usually necessary?

On systems using macOS, Linux, or when using printers from printer manufacturers like HP, Epson, and Lexmark.

Third-Party Print Monitors

Can be useful for providing desktop notifications when a print job is sent and for monitoring things like toner or ink levels.

What will many users rely on instead of a print monitor?

The print queue or print spooler.

Print Queue

A piece of software created by the OS to collect and manage print jobs.

What happens whenever a print job is sent to a printer?

Goes into a queue and processed on a first in first out basis.

What will happen if one print job is not going through?

It will delay other jobs.

What is the benefit of a print queue?

Multiple jobs can be sent and processed according to when they were received.

Print Spooler

A small application that manages how print jobs are sent from the computer to the printer.

What does the print spooler work with?

The print queue.

How does a print spooler work with the print queue?

By taking jobs from the print queue and feeding them to the printer one at a time.

What does the use of the print spooler provide in a Windows system?

Smooth execution of jobs in the order they are received.

What happens if the print wpooler fails?

Print jobs will stall.

How does a tech fix the issue of a print spooler failing?

Restarting it.

Garbled Print Jobs

Occurs when the output is not what was expected.

What is a common cause for a garbled printout?

Due to print driver issues.

Print Drivers

Translate the data from the computer into a format the printer can understand.

What can happen if the wrong print driver is being used?

The printer may not know how to interpret incoming data, resulting in a garbled printout.

How is the issue of garbled print jobs most commonly resolved?

By ensuring the correct driver is being used.

What can be done if the issue of garbled print jobs persists after going through the normal steps to solve this issue?

Use a more universal driver like PCL or PostScript driver.

What else can garble printouts outside of driver issues?

Using a font that is not recognized by the printer.

What is the common fix for resolving garbled print issues caused by font issues?

Use a different one or make sure it’s properly installed on the printer and computer.

What causes stalled or delayed prints?

Issues in the print queue or spooler.