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DADDY BOB'S COMPUTER Q & A
January 24, 2010
Q.
Why is it that occasionally when I print a
page like a PDF document, it looks like
gobble-de-gook? After I click on print, I
wait until the little graphic indicates it
has been sent. Does that mean the printer
has the info and I can go to another page?
A.
Before anything can be printed, the
computer sends information to the printer
telling it how to set up, format the pages,
etc. It then has to interpret the data which
is just a stream of ones and zeros being
sent to it. This is the function of the
printer driver, and each printer has its own
specific driver. If for some reason, and
there can be many, this preliminary data is
not sent or received correctly, then the
data is misinterpreted and you get
gobble-de-gook. Usually, re-sending the
print job cures this problem.
Probably
the most common cause of this problem occurs
when the printer is turned on after being
off, and data is sent to it before it has
had time to initialize completely causing it
to miss something.
Documents
or other data to be printed is formatted for
printing and stored in a buffer called the
print spooler** (usually an area on a disk)
by a fast processor and retrieved and
printed by a relatively slower printer at
its own rate. As soon as the fast processor
has written the document to the spool device
it has finished with the job and is fully
available for other processes. One or more
processes may rapidly write several
documents to a print queue without waiting
for each one to print before writing the
next.
Spooler
or print management software may allow
priorities to be assigned to jobs, notify
users when they have printed, distribute
jobs among several printers, allow
stationery to be changed or select it
automatically, generate banner pages to
identify and separate print jobs, etc.
When
printing a PDF file using Adobe Reader, once
the indicator shows the page has completed,
you can close the page and it should finish.
There is
one setting that will turn off the spooler
and make the computer print directly to the
printer which will make the printing much
slower and not allow you to leave the
printing page. This not the default so it is
probably not selected but just in case,
here's how to check it.
Open the
Control Panel, click on Printer and other
hardware, then Printers and faxes. Right
click on your printer and choose Properties.
From here on, each printer will be slightly
different, but there is probably a Advanced
tab. Clicking it will open a window where
there will be a choice to use the spooler or
print directly to the printer. Be sure that
printing directly to the printer is not
selected.
Printer
drivers and spoolers offer many other
possible settings like printing the last
page first so the pages will be in the
correct order when printed on an ink jet
type printer. Fortunately, most have a
default button that will reset everything to
its default settings should any change you
make not be what you wanted.
** "Spool"
was originally an acronym for Simultaneous
Peripheral Operations On-Line although some
it also can refer to Simultaneous Peripheral
Output On Line. |
