NETWORK PRINTING IN WINDOWS:
Printing on a windows network is mater of installing a printer on the system that is to function as
the print server and then create printer share.
Windows printing is based on the concept of a logical printer, which is realized by the
installation of a printer driver on both client and server.
A logical printer is the software entity created when you install a printer driver on windows
computer using control panel.
Application sends print job to a logical printer, then it sends or relays to the physical printing
device.
The windows printing process:
In windows network printing architecture, both the client and server system have a logical printer
installed.
The logical printer points to the physical printer using either a parallel or serial port or custom
port created by an external print server.
The client system loads printer driver. Printer driver consist of three components.
1. A print graphics driver.
2. A printer interface driver.
3. A postscript printer description (PPD).
The print graphics driver provides image rendering and management services.
The the windows GDI (graphical device interface) calls API, when an application
prints a documents.
The printer interface driver provides the configuration interface.
The postscript printer description or mini driver provides the device specific
configuration parameter for the printer
Through GDI, the application running on the client system creates an output file containing API
calls to the printer driver using the Devoice Driver Interface (DDI). This output file called DDI
journal file.
The spooler on the client system receives the DDI journal file and stores it in the spool directory
until the print processor can service it.
The print processor receives the DDI journal file from the spooler and processes it to create a
print job file using the format specified in the logical printer’s properties dialog box. Then output
is sent to the server.
The print router retrieves the job from the client spooler locates the printer for which it is
intended, and transmits over the network to the spooler on the print server. The print router is
also responsible for copying the printer drives from the print server.
The server spooler assigns a priority to the job and tracks its progress. The print monitor on the
server retrieves the print job file from the spooler and sends it to the parallel or serial or any
other port associated with printer share.
Once the print job file is processed by printer, the print monitor sends a verification message to
the client system, about job’s completion.
Then spooler deletes the job from the queue. The print monitor is responsible for handling errors
generated by the printer and resubmitting spooled jobs that have to be reprinted due to an error.
Network printing process:
When network users want to print data on a shared network printer, they send their data to a print
server. The server then feeds that data to a shared printer.
A print spooler is software that intercepts a print job on its way from the application to the
printer, and sends it to a print queue.
A print queue is a buffer where the print job is held until the printer is ready for it.
Network printing occurs in the following four steps.
1. An application formats its document data into a form the printer can use, and sends it out.
2. The computer’s redirector sends the data onto the network, where it travels to the print
server computer.
3. The print-spooler software on the print server computer places the data in a print queue
on the server.
4. The print queue stores the data until the printer is free to print it.
Print queues generally use RAM for storage because it can move data faster than a hard
disk can.
However, if numerous documents are sent to the printer at once and the queue overflows,
the overflow documents will be sent to the print server’s hard disk to wait their turn in the
queue.
Network printing issues:
Sharing printers among multiple users present several technical and administrative
issues. These issues are:
1. Print job spooling
2. Printer configurations
3. Printer selection
4. Operating system selection
5. Prints server selection
6. Printer administration
Print job spooling
- In network printing, to store pending jobs in queue until the printer ready to
process them. The process of temporarily storing print jobs on disk drive
called spooling.
- It depending on print architecture used, print job may be spooled on the
machine where they were generated or on a network server directory
dedicated to that purpose.
- The performance of network printing depends on location of print jobs queue.
If print job queue on local machine, the system processor uses more clock
cycles and utilizes more network bandwidth, to send the job to the printer
when it’s ready.
- Work station involved in printing process. If print job queue on network
server, it provides better performance to the user, because job immediately
transmitted to the network server.
- Workstations are no longer involved in the printing process. It is also easy for
administrator to administer print job. i.e., recording, pausing and cancelling.
Printer connections:
- Another important issue is location of printer. Finding the location of printer,
it depends on printer connection.
- There are three basic types of network printer connections, are as follows:
1. Server connections:
In this printer is connected to a network server. It minimizes the
amount of traffic generated by the printing process, because print queue
located on same server. The limitations of these methods are:
It uses serial or parallel connection limits the maximum distance between
printer and server.
It also limits number of printers connected to the server.
If servers near the data center or wiring closet, it limits user to accessing
the printer.
2. Workstation connections:
In this printer is connected to a workstation. This methods have also
limitations.
Limitation of distance between printer and workstation.
It generates more network traffic.
Printing process imposes an additional burden on the workstation’s
processor.
The advantage of this method is, it provides greater flexibility in finding
printer location.
3. Direct network connection:
In this method printer is directly connected to the network cable using a
standalone printer server. The printer directly connected to the network
cable with help of either NIC card that you install into the printer or a
dedicated device that connects to the printer with a parallel cable.
This method enables you to locate the printer any where a network
connection is available.
This method allows the network administrator to select a system for print
queue jobs.
