a printer, Printing from an application ( Win. Vista & 7 )

Selecting a printer

• In many larger organisations you may have the choice of printing to more than one printer.  To see which printers are available you can use the Control Panel.  To do this click on the Start button and then click on the Control Panel. 

• You will see the Control Panel displayed, as illustrated.  

• Within the Hardware and Sound section click on the Printer link. 

• You will see a screen similar to the following.

• In this example the Lexmark printer is set as the default printer.  The default printer is marked with a tick.     NOTE: You will have different printers installed. 

Changing the default printer

• To set a different printer as the default printer, right click on the printer icon you wish to set as the new default printer.  Click on the Set as Default Printer command.

• In this example we have changed the HP printer to become the default printer.  

Installing a new printer on the computer

• Click on the Start button and then click on the Control Panel.  Click on the Printer link within the Hardware and Sound section.  Click on the Add a printer button. 

• You will see the following dialog box.

• If the printer is attached directly to your computer, click on the Add a local printer option.  If your printer is on a network use the second option.  In this example use the Add a local printer option. You will see the following dialog box.  Select a port or use the default and click on the Next button. 

• The next screen allows you to select a make and model of printer to install.    TIP: You may have to insert a disk to install a printer that Windows does not know about.  After you have selected a make and model, click on the Next button.

• The next screen allows you to give the printer a name.  Accept the name displayed or type in a new name.  Then click on the Next button. 

• The final screen allows you to test that the printer is correctly installed and connected.  Click on the Print a test page button.  

• Click on the Finish button.

Printing from an application

• Once the printer is correctly connected and installed, you normally print from within your applications.   For instance, if you have written a memo within a program such as Microsoft Word, you would simply click on the Office Button and then select the Print command. 

  TIP: Within many applications, the keyboard shortcut for printing a document is Ctrl+P.

Using the Print Manager

• When you print a document the printing is handled by a part of Windows called the Print Manager.  After starting a document printing, you can view the Print Manager by clicking on the Print Manager icon displayed at the bottom-right of the screen.    You will see something like this displayed on your screen. 

• As printing is a slow process, if you try and print a lot of documents at the same time you will see the documents queued up within the Print Manger.  You can pause the printing of a document by selecting the document within the print queue, right clicking and selecting the Pause command.

  To restart the printing select the Restart command.   

• To cancel the printing of a particular document right click over the document and select the Cancel command.

• You will see a warning screen.  Click on the Yes button to confirm that you wish to cancel.