Sams Teach Yourself Microsoft Windows XP in 24 Hours

By Greg Perry

• Table of Contents
  • Copyright
  • About the Author
  • Acknowledgments
  • Tell Us What You Think!
  • Introduction
  • Part I: Wake Up with Windows XP
  • Hour 1. Taking a Bird's-Eye Look at Windows XP
  • Hour 2. Getting Started with Windows XP
  • Hour 3. Managing the Windows XP Interface
  • Part II: Morning Windows Desktop Exploration
  • Hour 4. Working with the My Computer Window
  • Hour 5. Navigating Files with Windows Explorer
  • Hour 6. Calling for Help
  • Hour 7. Improving Your Windows Desktop Experience
  • Part III: Early Afternoon Windows Exploration
  • Hour 8. Installing Programs with Windows XP
  • Hour 9. Finding Files, Folders, and Friends
  • Hour 10. Using the Desktop Accessories
  • Part IV: Late Afternoon Internet Integration
  • Hour 11. Surfing the Web with Internet Explorer
  • Hour 12. Tying Windows into the Web
  • Hour 13. Networking with Windows XP
  • Hour 14. Managing E-mail and Newsgroups with Outlook Express
  • Part V: An Evening with Advanced Windows
  • Hour 15. Exploring Your Hardware Interface
  • Hour 16. Understanding Printing and Fonts
    • Introduction to Spooled Printing
    • Setting Up a Printer
    • The Print Dialog Box
    • Managing Print Jobs
    • Deferred Printing
    • Fonts Have Style
    • Fonts and Typefaces
    • Removing Fonts
    • Summary
    • Q&A
    • Workshop
  • Hour 17. Using Windows on the Road
  • Hour 18. Giving Windows XP a Tune-Up
  • Hour 19. Managing Your Hard Drives
  • Hour 20. Tinkering with the Advanced System Tools
  • Part VI: Having Fun at Nighttime
  • Hour 21. Using Media Player
  • Hour 22. Picturing Windows XP Graphics
  • Hour 23. Making Movies with Windows XP
  • Hour 24. Advanced Windows XP Tips
  • Part VII: Appendixes
  • Appendix A. Differences Between the Windows Home and Professional Edition
  • Appendix B. Glossary
  • Appendix C. Answers to Quizzes

Deferred Printing

Sometimes you'll print documents but not want those documents to appear on a printer. Often people carry a laptop with them but not a printer. Even if you don't have a printer with you, you might create expense reports and other documents that you want to print as soon as you get back to your office.

Instead of keeping track of each document you want to print later, you can go ahead and issue a deferred printing request. When you do this, Windows spools the document or documents to a file on your disk drive. The printer subsystem will not attempt to send the spooled data to a printer just yet. When you later attach a printer to your PC, you can release the deferred printing request and Windows begins printing the saved print jobs.

Ordinarily, if you were to print a document to a printer but you had no printer attached to your computer, Windows would issue a taskbar error message, shown in Figure 16.6. Although Windows can spool the output properly and set up a print job for the output, Windows cannot finish the job because of a lack of a printer. The dialog box lets you know about the problem.

Figure 16.6 Windows cannot print if a printer is not attached to your PC.

If you want to defer printing for another time, open the Printers folder and right-click over the icon that matches the printer for which you want to store print jobs. After you right-click, select Use Printer Offline. When you return to your office or plug a printer into the printer port, you can repeat this process to deselect the Use Printer Offline option. As soon as you set the printer icon back to its normal online status, Windows XP will begin printing to that printer.

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