Under windows it is possible to use any number of printing devices. Each printer usually has a specific job for example there might be an inkjet printer for printing, text and graphics, a label printer for printing labels, and a fax printer for sending faxes. It is also possible to print documents using printers attached to a local network and printers attached to other computers as long as they have been shared. Before a printer can be used under windows it must be added and configured. To setup and configure printers please consult windows help.

When you are deploying a program that facilitates printing it is important to remember that all printers differ in their capabilities and performance. This will lead to variations in the printed document obtained by the end user. Some people don’t have a printer, so it is important to check that at least one printer is attached to their system before attempting a print job. When you send a print job to a printer what you are actually doing is sending the print job to a program called a print spooler; it is called “winspool” under windows. The print spooler is a separate program which manages a queue of print jobs. Print jobs can come from other programs, and other users if you have a shared or networked printer. Each printer generally has it’s own print queue. The print spooler manages the print jobs and actually sends the print job to the printer. If an error occurs with a print job it is reported to the print spooler, not to your program. It is not possible to detect printing errors occurring on a printer directly, instead it is necessary to query the status of the print spooler.

Having said all that printing is easy it essentially the same as outputting text and graphics to the screen.