Printers, Print Jobs, and Queues

Depending on the printer, you can control the appearance and characteristics of the final output. The printers need not be located in the same area as the system unit and the system console. A printer can be attached directly to a local system, or a print job can be sent over a network to a remote system.

To handle print jobs with maximum efficiency, the system places each job into a queue to await printer availability. The system can save output from one or more files in the queue. As the printer produces the output from one file, the system processes the next job in the queue. This process continues until each job in the queue has been printed.

For detailed information about printers, print jobs, and queues, see the AIX 5L Version 5.2 Guide to Printers and Printing.

This chapter discusses the following chapters:

• Printer Terminology
• Starting a Print Job (qprt Command)
• Canceling a Print Job (qcan Command)
• Checking Print Job Status (qchk Command)
• Printer Status Conditions
• Prioritizing a Print Job (qpri Command)
• Holding and Releasing a Print Job (qhld Command)
• Moving a Print Job to Another Print Queue (qmov Command)
• Formatting Files for Printing (pr Command)
• Printing ASCII Files on a PostScript Printer
• Automating the Conversion of ASCII to PostScript
• Overriding Automatic Determination of Print File Types
• Command Summary for Printers, Print Jobs, and Queues
• Related Information