Home > System >
Printing
Overview
Mac OS X and Windows XP have excellent printer support. Both can share and print to any printer on a network. Scheduling of print jobs is also supported, but each operating system has a different level of support. For example, OS X can print EPS and PostScript documents to any raster printer, while XP requires that such documents be sent either to a PostScript printer or through an EPS Rip.
OS X also supports CUPS (Common UNIX Printing System). CUPS is a cross-platform IP printing solution for all UNIX environments. OS X users can point their browser to http://localhost:631 to manage their printers.
Printing Support
The following table gives an overview of OS X and XP's level of printer support:
| Task | Mac OS X | Windows XP |
| Create printer presets | Yes | No |
| Print to PostScript | Yes | No |
| Note: Besides PostScript, OS X can also print jobs to PDF. | ||
| Print highlighted selection | No | Yes |
| Print Preview | Yes | Limited |
| Note: This feature is only available in applications developed with .Net 2.0 or MFC (Microsoft Foundtaion Class). | ||
| Schedule print jobs | Yes | Yes |
| Scale content to % of page | Yes | No |
| Note: XP does not offer this feature natively. It only supports the scaling of pages if the printer itself offers the feature within its drivers. | ||
| Share printers over a network | Yes | Yes |
| Print to shared printers over a network | Yes | Yes |
| Print from the file system | Yes | Yes |
| Create shortcut to printer on desktop for drag and drop printing of files (desktop printer) | Yes | Yes |
Managing Printers & Print Jobs
Mac OS X
OS X users manage the printers attached to their computer via the Printer Setup Utility, available at System Preferences > Print & Fax > Printer Setup... (you can also access it from Applications > Utilities or from within any print dialog). All the printers (local and shared) that are available to a user's computer are listed here. The default printer is bolded.
Printer Setup Utility
Double-click on any of the printers to open a window displaying a detailed list of the jobs scheduled to print. The "Completed" tab lists jobs that have printed successfully.
View queued printer jobs
To add a new printer, click the "Add" icon in the toolbar. Users can select from printers OS X has found connected to the computer locally or over a network.
Windows XP
XP users can manage their printers and print jobs by going to Start > Printers and Faxes. All the printers (local and shared) that are available to a user's computer are listed here. A check mark on the printer's icon denotes which printer is currently set as default. To set another printer as default, right-click on its icon and choose "Set as Default Printer" from the contextual menu that appears.
To add a new printer to the list, double-click the "Add Printer" icon. This will launch the Add Printer Wizard.
In addition to displaying each printer's status (ready, paused, etc.), it also displays the number of jobs that are waiting to be printed. Double-click a printer's icon to see a more detailed list of all the print jobs for any particular printer.
This window is also accessible by double-clicking the printer icon that appears in the notification tray within the taskbar. This icon appears whenever there are any jobs waiting to be printed.
Scheduling Print Jobs
Mac OS X
To schedule a print job on OS X, open the Print dialog from within an application and choose "Schedule" from the drop-down menu. Users are limited to scheduling only on a per-job basis.
You can schedule a job to print immediately (the default), at a specific time within a 24-hour period, or put it on hold. Traditionally, jobs are printed in the order in which they are submitted, but you can always change this by modifying its priority level (Urgent, High, Medium, and Low). Those with a higher priority will be printed first.
Windows XP
XP offers fine grain scheduling of print jobs. Users have two options available for scheduling printing on their computers. They can either schedule printing on a per-job basis or on a per-printer basis.
Scheduling Printers: While in the "Printers and Faxes" panel, right-click on a printer and choose Properties > Advanced. Users can toggle when a particular printer is "online/offline" within a 24-hour period. Any jobs that are queued for this printer will only print when a printer is online.
Scheduling Jobs: You can further schedule when certain jobs print. While in the "Printers and Faxes" panel, double-click on a printer containing the jobs you wish to schedule. In the printer window that appears, right-click on a job and choose Properties > General. Not only can you can specify an exact time frame a job will print, but you can also give the print job a priority number (up to 70). Per-job print scheduling works regardless if you have setup a period of availability for your printer.
Conclusion
Mac OS X
- Built-in CUPS support
- Can print to PostScript and PDF natively
- Can natively preview documents before printing
- Limited print scheduling support. Can only schedule prints on a per-job basis. No ability to schdeule prints on a per-printer basis.
- Limited priority settings for print jobs. There's only four priority levels: urgent, high, medium, low.
Windows XP
- Can schedule prints on on a per-job and per-printer basis
- Flexible priority settings for print jobs. Jobs can be set with a priority level between 1 — 70
- No built-in CUPS support
- Can't print to PostScript or PDF natively
- Can't natively preview documents before printing
Mac OS X: 8
Windows XP: 7
Back Power Management | Next Sending & Receiving Faxes