Lesson 3: Managing Documents

Lesson 3:?Managing Documents

In addition to managing printers, Windows XP Professional allows you to manage documents. Managing documents includes pausing, resuming, restarting, and canceling documents. In addition, you can set someone to be notified when a print job is finished, the priority to allow a critical document to print before other documents, and a specific time for a document to print.


After this lesson, you will be able to

  • Pause, resume, restart, and cancel the printing of a document
  • Set a notification, priority, and printing time
  • Delete a document from the print queue

Estimated lesson time: 20 minutes


Pausing, Restarting, and Canceling a Document

If there is a printing problem with a specific document, you can pause and resume printing of that document. Additionally, you can restart or cancel a document. You must have the Manage Documents permission for the appropriate printer to perform these actions. Because the creator of a document has the default permissions to manage that document, users can perform any of these actions on their own documents.

To manage a document, right-click the icon representing the printer for the document in the Printers And Faxes window, and then click Open. Select the appropriate documents, click the Document menu, and then click the appropriate command to pause, resume, and restart from the beginning, or cancel a document, as shown in Figure 7.7.

Figure 7.7??Managing documents

Table 7.4 describes the tasks that you might perform when you manage individual documents, how to perform the tasks, and examples of situations in which you might perform them.

Table 7.4??Managing Document Tasks

Setting Notification, Priority, and Printing Time

You can control print jobs by setting the notification, priority, and printing time. To perform these document management tasks, you must have the Manage Documents permission for the appropriate printer.

You can set the notification, priority, and printing time for a document in the General tab of the Properties dialog box for the document, as shown in Figure 7.8. To open the Properties dialog box for one or more documents, first select the documents in the Printer window, click Document on the Printer window menu bar, and then click Properties.

Figure 7.8??Setting notification, priority, and printing time for a document

Table 7.5 describes the tasks that you might perform when you control print jobs, how to perform the tasks, and examples of situations in which you might perform them.

Table 7.5??Setting a Notification, Changing Priority, and Scheduling Print Times

Practice:?Managing Documents

In this practice, you manage documents by printing a document, setting a notification for a document, changing the priority for a document, and then canceling a document.

To verify that a printer is offline

  1. Log on as the user you created during installation or any user that is a member of the Administrators group.
  2. Click Start and then click Control Panel.
  3. In the Control Panel window, click Printers And Other Hardware, and click Printers And Faxes.
  4. In the Printers And Faxes window, click the printer icon.
  5. Do one of the following to verify that the printer is offline:
    • On the File menu, verify that the Use Printer Online option is listed because that indicates that the printer is currently offline.
    • Right-click the printer icon and verify that the Use Printer Online command is listed because that indicates that the printer is currently offline.
    • If the Printers And Faxes window is displayed in Web view, verify that Use Printer Offline is displayed in the left portion of the window.
  6. Verify that a check mark appears above the printer icon indicating that it is the default printer.
  7. Minimize the Printers And Faxes window.
Keep the printer offline to keep it from trying to print. This eliminates error messages in later exercises when documents are spooled.

To print a document

  1. Click Start, point to All Programs, point to Accessories, and then click WordPad.
  2. Type How big is big? and then, on the File menu, click Save.
  3. In the File Name text box, type BIG, and then click Save.
  4. Click File and then click Print.

    The Print dialog box appears. Notice that the file will be printed on the HP Color LaserJet 4550 PS printer.

  5. Click Print, and then close WordPad.

To set a notification

  1. Restore the Printers And Faxes window.
  2. Double-click HP Color LaserJet 4550 PS.
  3. In the Printer window, select BIG, and then, on the Document menu, click Properties.

    Windows XP Professional displays the BIG Document Properties dialog box with the General tab active.

    Which user is specified in the Notify text box? Why?

  4. In the Notify text box, type Fred and then click Apply.

    You set the notification to go to Fred.

To increase the priority of a document

  1. In the BIG Document Properties dialog box, in the General tab, notice the default priority.

    What is the current priority? Is it the lowest or highest priority?

  2. In the Priority box, move the slider to the right to increase the priority of the document to 38, and then click OK.

    Nothing changes visibly in the HP Color LaserJet 4550 PS - Use Printer Offline window.

To cancel a document

  1. Select BIG in the Printer window document list.
  2. On the Document menu, click Cancel.

    Notice that the Status column changes to Deleting. BIG is removed from the document list.

    You can also cancel a document by pressing the Delete key.
  3. Close the Printer window, and then close the Printers And Faxes window.

Lesson Review

The following questions will help you determine whether you have learned enough to move on to the next lesson. If you have difficulty answering these questions, review the material in this lesson before beginning the next lesson. The answers for these questions are in Appendix A, "Questions and Answers."

  1. What is the difference between resuming printing of a document and restarting printing of a document?
  2. Which of the following statements about the range of priorities for a document to be printed is correct?
    1. Priorities for a document range from 1 to 10, with 1 being the highest priority.
    2. Priorities for a document range from 1 to 10, with 10 being the highest priority.
    3. Priorities for a document range from 1 to 99, with 1 being the highest priority.
    4. Priorities for a document range from 1 to 99, with 99 being the highest priority.
  3. You set the notification, priority, and printing time for a document in the ______________ tab of the Properties dialog box for the document.
  4. By default, Windows XP Professional enters the ______________ logon name in the Notify text box of a document.
    1. Administrator's
    2. Owner of the printer's
    3. Owner of the document's
    4. Person who printed the document's

Lesson Summary

  • Managing documents includes pausing, resuming, restarting, and canceling documents.
  • In the Notify text box for a document, you can set who is notified when the print job is finished.
  • Setting the document priority allows a critical document to print before other documents.
  • Setting a specific time for a document to print allows large documents to only print during off hours, such as late at night.
  • You must have the Manage Documents permission for the appropriate printer to perform these document management tasks.
  • The creator of a document has the default permissions to manage that document, so users can perform any of these actions on their own documents.