Chapter 14 - Printing from OS/2 Workstations
Introduction to Printing from OS/2 Workstations
This chapter lists the print features supported on VINES OS/2 workstations. It also provides pertinent information about using OS/2 print management features in a VINES environment. These features include:
DOS Compatibility Box OS/2 Presentation Manager (PM) Print Spooler
This chapter describes these two features and also provide information on how OS/2 workstations use VINES print services.
OS/2 workstations can access any VINES print service. The physical printer can be connected to either a server or a DOS workstation running PCPrint. PCPrint cannot be run on an OS/2 workstation.
As an OS/2 user, you can print by using:
An application's print functions OS/2 print commands PM Print Spooler VINES BPRINT command
For all of the above except BPRINT, VINES supports the use of LPT1, LPT2, and LPT3. BPRINT lets users send print jobs directly to a print service.
The SETPRINT and MSERVICE programs or the OS/2 PM printer applications let you control print jobs.
For information about printing using an application, an OS/2 command, or a PM Print Spooler function, see your OS/2 documentation. For information about BPRINT, see the Command Reference.
Printing from the DOS Compatibility Box
When you start a session in the DOS Compatibility Box, OS/2 sessions continue to run in the background. The DOS Compatibility Box allows OS/2 users to run DOS applications. If you started a print job in an OS/2 session before opening the DOS session, the job continues to print as a background task.
When you start a print job in the DOS Compatibility Box and then exit the Box before the job completes, the session freezes. No printing or other work started in that DOS Compatibility Box session continues until you resume that session.
Using the OS/2 Presentation Manager Print Spooler
VINES supports the OS/2 PM Print Spooler. This section provides information on the following topics:
Reviewing PM Print Spooler features Setting up the PM Print Spooler Setting up printer ports Assigning printer ports to print services
Reviewing PM Print Spooler Features
The PM Print Spooler provides the following features:
Allows multiple OS/2 applications to send print jobs to a single printer port simultaneously. The Print Spooler manages each job as a separate job, and prints only one complete job at a time. Lets users manage print jobs in a local print queue before the job is sent to the network. Supports data presentation drivers, called PM printer drivers, for specific printer types. These drivers allow PM applications to print data in WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) format so that the printed output matches the data on the user's screen. Except for one default PM printer driver, IBM42xx, these PM printer drivers are available on separate OS/2 installation diskettes.
With VINES network support, the Print Spooler can send print jobs to network print services. Without network support, the PM Print Spooler sends print jobs to a local printer, connected to the user's workstation.
VINES does not require the use of the PM Print Spooler to print jobs on the network. Users can disable the Print Spooler if they are not using applications that make use of its features.
Setting Up the PM Print Spooler
The PM Print Spooler is an integrated component of the OS/2 Presentation Manager and is installed during the OS/2 installation process, by default.
After installation, use the Control Panel and the Print Manager to set up the PM Print Spooler.
Use the OS/2 Control Panel instead of the OS/2 Printer Installer to install the PM printer drivers. The Printer Installer may not read Extended Attributes (EAs) correctly and therefore will not work. The Control Panel does read EAs correctly.
Refer to the OS/2 documentation for instructions on using the Setup utility to install the Print Spooler. Follow the instructions in the next section for setting up the printer ports.
You must configure the Print Spooler for each printer port you want the Spooler to control. To do so, you use the PM Print Manager to assign to each port a specific printer type and a print queue according to instructions in the OS/2 documentation.
The ports you assign correspond to the printer ports you assign with a SETPRINT command. For example, if you assign LPT1 with the PM Print Manager and use SETPRINT to assign LPT1 to a print service, all print jobs sent to LPT1 through the Print Spooler will print on the network printer associated with that print service.
Assigning Printer Ports to VINES Print Services
Use the SETPRINT command to assign printer ports to print services. See "Making Print Services Available to Users" in Chapter 11 for details on using SETPRINT.
