NWE Help: Printing: Queue tech

Here's some technical information about the way printing functions in our environment:

You print tell an application to print a file to a certain printer.
The application uses the appropriate printer command (usually lpr or enscript) to bundle up the file, and sends it to another application called the print queue (qdaemon, which you can control with enq).
- Some applications save these jobs as temporary files and use other programs to enqueue them.
The print queue connects to the printer and begins to print the job.
When the print queue has sent all the job information to the printer, it assumes the job has printed, and stops trying to print it.

Summary: Because print jobs are queued up on the Unix server, not inside the printer itself, interrupting or turning off the printer doesn't actually clear out the jobs -- if you leave it off a short time, it'll just continue printing the same jobs when it comes back on. And if you leave it off a long enough time, you'll probably just annoy the server, and it will give up trying to communicate with the printer. That downs or jams up the queue, and that doesn't help anyone.

So don't turn off those printers. If you have a problem with a printer which our clearing jobs page can't help you fix, get in touch with help staff.