Shutoff Printing

Suppose you committed some form of a booh-booh and got the printer started. What is the most reliable means of stopping the printer?
Yes, you can go to PRINTERS and highlight the current printer and issue all kinds of commands but nothing really seems to STOP the printer in its tracks. Is there a more expeditious way of stopping a printer than sitting back and waiting a month of Sundays before the printer stops?

 

Yank the power plug.

 

You might try pulling all the paper out of it. When it's done printing the page it's on, it'll spit out an error and may give you the option to cancel printing.

 

I done did that. Yanked the plug. When I turned it back on it just started printing again.

 

David ...

You didn't say what brand/model printer you have, so I can speak only in general terms. When confronted with the situation you describe:

1. Turn the printer off, using its ON/OFF switch. The sheet being printed probably will be ejected.

2. Open Control Panel > Printers and Faxes and select your printer. A small window will open displaying the "print queue ".

3. Select the document you were printing and click on Document > Cancel. (Or, without a selection, click on Printer > Cancel All Documents.)​

When you turn the printer back on, it should be in its idle state.

 

Thanks for the answer and I shall certainly try it.
But what concerns me is this. Is the printer's memory cleared when the printer's memory is turned off? I never have experienced it losing memory. If it does not lose it then when you turn it back on, after canceling the document, is that when the memory is cleared?

 

David ...

I'm going way out on a limb, here, but I'm of the impression that consumer-level printers produced in the past 10-15 years don't have built-in memory. Prior to that most computers had so little memory that either of two things was required: printers had to have their own memory, or an intermediate print spooler was required.

Today the print spooler (print queue) is built into the OS (in XP it's a service, started with C:\WINDOWS\system32\spoolsv.exe) and uses system memory, which is why the printer continues to print after being turned off, then back on.

I can't speak about other printers, but software installed with the Canon S900 I've used for the past four years opens a "printer information" window when printing begins. It displays, among other things, "Cancel Printing" and "Display Print Queue" buttons. The "Cancel Printing" button does just that, immediately, when clicked. The other button opens the print queue window so I can clear the canceled print job from memory ... all this while the printer is still turned on.

Only if such capabilities are not available to you should you need to follow the steps listed in my previous post.

 

Just noticed this thread is still going. David - you never asked about turning it back on.

Couple of notes here - like women, most printers have memory. Also, of particular note - turning a printer off is quite different than disconnecting the power plug. Turning a printer off usually won't clear a traffice jam being held in memory, pulling the plug will.

 

OK. Next time this occurs it will be a plug pull. And thanks for the detailed answer regarding the Canon.
The printers currently in question is are HP 890C and HP660. I am rather surprised others haven't experienced the frustration of page after page puring out and each one with enough gibbersih on it to ruin it.

David

 

I have with HP printers. I've had a couple of them. One of them was a 694C which is pretty much the same as a 690. I can't remember what I used to do to get it to quit. Whether it was pulling the plug or if I took the paper out as I suggested earlier. It's been a while. I've since started buying Canons. My experience with them in this regard is pretty much the same as JSSrd3's.

 

Thanks for clearing that up, Rockster. I should have done a bit of research before posting that. It used to be that the amount of memory a printer possessed was almost always advertised and, frequently, additional memory could be added. Now, it's never mentioned, and I jumped to a false conclusion.

I just checked on my Canon S900 printer and, according to a review by Steve's Digicams in March 2002, it has an 80 KB buffer (which I don't recall seeing in Canon's docs, although it may have been listed in the specs).

 

Avoid gibberish?
If you go to File -> Print you can select how many pages to print at a time. I alwalys break them up on a large print job. If you are printing 20 pages of straight text, clicking the print button may work fine...if it is 20 pages in "rich text" or includes pictures or graphics, the story may be different.

Break large print jobs into smaller ones unless you want to "pull the plug ".

At least that is my experience.

Matt

 

I'm with Zander on this one. Pull the paper out about an inch and wait for the thing to say you are out of paper. Then you can cancel the document which clears it from memory.

 

Pull the paper! It's a low tech solution that's always handy and never fails.

BTW, all may be interested in FinePrint. It allows for Print Preview in ANY program and has several other useful features. Free to try - no time-out AFAIK.

 

David Favin--Borrowing from JSS3rd and specific to HP printers open Control Panel and click on Printers and Faxes. Right click on your printer's icon|Create Shortcut. By default the shortcut will be placed on your Desktop. Click that shortcut|Click Printer in the left corner of the menubar to get a drop down menu. One choice is "Pause Printing ". Another is "Cancel all Documents ". Click both (which will check those items). You will probably get one or two more sheets printed but then the printer will stop and the memory should be cleared.
I put the shortcut into QuickLaunch so I can access quickly.
Don't forget to uncheck these settings when the printer has stopped. Otherwise, it will not accept anymore printjobs.

P.S. Wouldn't pulling the paper mean the printhead will be printing on the roller?

 

Nope...Pulling the paper does not pull the page that is printing. When it finishes, the printer will try to load a new sheet.

 

Nope. I'm with Bmoore on this one. The printer will sense that there's no paper in it and will stop printing and give you an error message. If memory serves me correctly the older HP's would then also offer you the option to cancel printing. I could be wrong about the option to cancel printing as it's been a while but that's what sticks in my memory. Option or no option, the printer will stop when there's no paper in it.

 

Yep, correct. That's how my HP's work. I've never printed the roller yet.