How to Clear or Unfreeze Your Printer Spool

As referenced in our Blog Posting of Printer Terms on August 3, 2012.

Sometimes when you are printing - there can be an error and nothing will print.  You may or may not see an error message, but when there is an error, documents in the queue (in line) for printing will freeze and nothing will print. You may think that something is wrong with the printer, but the problem is caused by the Print Spooler. The problem can be solved rather easily and removing the jam in the printer will only take a few seconds.

Right-click on "Computer" or "My Computer" and a drop-down menu will appear. Click on "Manage."

Click on "Services and Applications" and then click on "Services" to view all the services on your computer.

Scroll down to "Print Spooler" and right-click on it. A drop-down menu will appear, on which you will click on "Stop" to temporarily halt the service.

Shrink the window and click on "Computer" or "My Computer."

Click on the primary hard drive on the computer, which is normally the "(C:)" drive.

Click on the "Windows" folder.

Click on the "System32" folder.

Click on the "Spool" folder and the "Printers" folder inside it to view the print jobs you want to clear.

Press the "Ctrl" and "A" key simultaneously to select everything and press the "Delete" key to clear the Print Spooler. Close the window.

Restore the "Services" window, right-click on "Print Spooler" and click on "Start" so your printer can schedule print jobs again.

Registration is this Tuesday, August 7th - 9am

Don't forget - Registration for the next series of computer classes at Southern Artery, Series #55, is this coming Tuesday morning, 9am – August 7th at the Southern Artery North Building..

The series itself, begins the week of Monday, August 20^th and continues thru November 1^st…No classes will be held on Monday, September 3 for the Labor Day Holiday or on Monday, October 8^th for the Columbus Day Holiday

Special note – we have combined our Intro to Word & Excel classes held in the morning as requested by many students… so you will spend half the series working with Word Basics and the second half learning Excel basics… - This has also allowed us to add another Beginner or Internet class as needed…

Times & Topics for our Morning Beginner/Intermediate Classes:

·         Monday 9am: Beginner 1-Computer Basics (Hardware, Software & Intro to Internet)

·         Monday, 10:30am: Intermediate 1/Internet Basics (All about the internet, web & using email)

·         Tuesday, 9am: Intermediate 1/Internet Basics (All about the internet, web & using email)

·         Tuesday, 10:30am: Beginner 1-Computer Basics (Hardware, Software & Intro to Internet)

·         Wednesday, 9am: – Intermediate 2/Word & Excel Basics (Word Processing basics and then intro to basics of spreadsheets to manage lists and numbers)

·         Wednesday, 10:30am: Beginner 1-Computer Basics (Hardware, Software & Intro to Internet)

Times & Topics for our Afternoon Advanced Classes:

• Monday & Tuesday: 1pm-2:30pm
• Wednesday & Thursday: 1pm-2:30pm and 2:30pm-4pm.

During this new series, Afternoon students, will continue to focus on Word Skills in Word Email & Power Point: We will spend the first few weeks with Word Tables creating create a medial information form; we will then review some of the new features offered by email services, then work with organizing photos on our computers and flash drives; learning more about new features offered by Picasa for photo editing – including easily uploading Picasa photos to Walgreen’s & Facebook; and finish out the series spending several weeks creating slide show presentations with Power Point…

Remember, all afternoon students, who have completed the morning Beginner & Internet classes, are welcome to sign up (and pay) for a 2nd class, in the morning such as the combined Word/Excel class, or to refresh their skills on computer and internet basics... Requests for the 2nd class will be granted/honored on a first come first serve basis and students coming up from the Morning Internet Class have priority on the Word/Excel Class openings..

As always, consider registering with a friend so that you have someone to motivate you to use your new skills and if you have ideas or suggestions for topics that you would like to see us teaching – be sure to let us know… 

These are your classes and we want to be sure you are learning the skills important to you…And as always we welcome your comments and suggestions about what it is you want to learn during these classes, not only about application software – such as Word, Excel, Picasa and others, but all of this technology that is changing continually… 

Glossary Of Printer Terms (Part 2 of 2):

This is Part 2 of the blog posting we began on Sunday, July 29^th,2012.

Printing Media - What the printer prints on, i.e. paper, transparencies, film and CD/DVD surfaces. The media type that a printer can support differs by printer type and model.

MFC Printer - A MultiFunction (MFC)/All-In-One printer can perform a rich variety of task including printing, scanning, copying and even faxing. With an MFC/All-In-One printer, you do not need to invest in separate copiers, scanners or fax machines (unless you have special requirements). In general, an MFC/All-In-One printer makes installation easier and saves valuable office space.

Non-impact Printing  - Non-impact printing allows printing an image without striking the printing media. Both inkjet and laser printers are non-impact printers.

OCR – OCR stands for ”Optical Character Recognition” and is a computerized process that enables us to convert a paper document into a computer file that you can edit or manipulate using a program such as Microsoft Word or Word Perfect..OCR used to be an expensive technology, but today is found on many of the All in One/MCF printer/copiers…  All OCR systems work in conjunction with your printer/scanner so that when we put the document face down on the scanner glass, it takes a picture of the document, but stores the
picture” in the form of a bitmap file/also known as an image file – and the OCR software then examines the patterns of dots in the image file and create a file that contains text that is represented as fonts and ASCII codes (once this is done most OCR system discard/delete the image/bitmap file)

PPM - Pages per minute, used to measure printing speed. A printer’s printing speed varies depending on print quality settings, print media, and page size.

SPOOL/SPOOLING: Basically, spooling is the process of placing data in a temporary working area for another program to process. Today, most of us here this term in reference to document s sent from our computer to our printer – known as print spooling.  This means that documents formatted for printing are stored usually in an area on a disk on our printers and retrieved and printed at the rate determined by that printer..  Printers typically can print only a single document at a time and require seconds or minutes to do so. With spooling, multiple processes can write documents to a print queue without waiting. As soon as a process has written its document to the spool device, the process can perform other tasks, while a separate printing process operates the printer

On a stand-alone computer, spooling is handled by the operating system. On a network computer, documents are sent to a print server, where they are spooled before being sent to the designated printer

(We will address how to clear you printer spooling if it freezes or gets jammed in next weeks blog on August 10th)

Two Sided Printing - A technology allowing printing on both sides of the paper (sometimes referred to as duplex printing).

USB - The USB (Universal Serial Bus) port is a popular I/O interface used for connecting computers and peripherals or other devices – USB connections are the most popular interface today for all printers and most other peripheral devices.

Glossary Of Printer Terms (Part 1 of 2):

Glossary Of Printer Terms (Part 1 of 2):

ALL-IN-ONE Printer – These are MultiFunction (MFC)/All-In-One printers which means they  can perform a variety of task including printing, scanning, copying and faxing, so that we don’t have to purchase individuals pieces of equipment.

Borderless Printing - Borderless printing allows a printer to output photos with no borders. This is extremely helpful for edge-to-edge printing.

Dot Matrix Printer - A dot matrix printer works by striking an ink ribbon to print tiny and closely spaced dots onto paper to form certain characters and simple images and is excellent for invoices, address labels and carbon copy invoices.

DPI - Dots per inch, used to indicate printing resolutions that are measured both horizontally and vertically. For example, a resolution of 4800 x 1200 dpi means 4800 dots across and 1200 dots down so that there are 5,760,000 dots per square inch in total.

Duplex Printing - A technology allowing printing on both sides of the paper (sometimes referred to as two-sided printing).

Impact Printing - Impact printing creates images and text by striking the print media/paper. Dot matrix printers adopt impact printing technology.

Inkjet Printer - Inkjet printers spray extremely tiny and precise ink droplets to create characters and graphics. Based on color mixing principles, inkjet printers utilize several ink cartridges containing different colors to produce vivid color images, which is why inkjet printers are often applied in picture-intensive printing.

Laser Printer - A laser printer is also non-impact and uses laser to adhere solid toner (typically black powder) instead of spraying liquid ink onto paper to create images. In a laser printer, the drum (looks like a cylinder), laser unit, toner cartridge and fuser are important components for printing.

LPT/ Parallel Port - LPT, also known as Parallel Port, is a type of archived port used in the past by printers; today almost all printers use USB connections.

Part 2 of this Blog will be posted on Friday, August 3rd, 2012.

Word - How to Create Note Cards

For Word 2003:

For those of you with Word 2003, go to Menu Bar > Tools->Letters and Mailings->Envelopes and Labels. To do so:

1.      In Word for Windows, click the Labels tab

2.      From the menu next to "Label products:" or "Label vendors", choose the brand of your labels. Then, in the "Product number:" field, choose the label you need, for example:

ü         5315 for notecards

ü         5362 for nametags or badges

Note: If you wish to change margins or other settings, click New Label... . Enter a name for your custom label, and change the settings to your specifications. After you click OK, Word will show your label name in the "Product number:" field.

3.      Click OK to save your settings.

FOR WORD 2007/2010:

For those of you with Microsoft Word 2007 or 2010:

Open Microsoft Word 2007 OR 2010 and click on the "Microsoft Office Button" in the top left of the Ribbon.

1.          Click on "New" at the top of the menu.

2.          In the “New Document” dialog box, click on "More Templates" at the very bottom of the left task pane. In the middle task pane, click "Note Cards." The middle task pane changes to show a series of thumbnails for note card templates.

3.          Download the note card of your choice by double-clicking on the card thumbnail.

4.          Once you have downloaded the card of your choice it is yours – be sure to save it in a folder and name it as a “template”, so that as you make modifications you can then save it under the name of the event or person you are sending it to – but will have the blank original for future use

5.          You can make any modifications to the note card by clicking and typing text. You can also modify or delete graphics on the card by selecting the graphic to bring up the "Format" tab.

6.          Add clip art to your card by clicking on the "Insert" tab and then clicking "Clip Art" in the "Illustrations" group.

7.          When the task pane appears to the right of the screen, type an item to search for in the "Search For" field and click "Go." Add the graphic to your note card by double-clicking on the graphic.

8.          Click the "Microsoft Office Button" when you are done with your modifications. Click "Save" and give your note card document a name.

9.          Click the "Microsoft Office Button" and then "Print" to print out your note card.

 To print on both sides of a single sheet of paper check the "Manual Duplex" checkbox.

Facebook Glossary & Helpful Hints

Whether you are new to Facebook, or have been using it for awhile, there are times when we all run across a term for a setting or feature that we don't understand...  Facebook has a wonderful glossary that gives us easy to understand explanations...it is their Facebook Glossary   Check it out – you will see a list of terms – simply left click on them and you will see a full description as to what they mean and how they work…

www.facebook.com/help/glossary

Another favorite website within Facebook, is their “Facebook Tips” section – with help in every conceivable aspect of using Facebook for your personal use, as well as for work and organizations you might belong to…

www.facebook.com/facebooktips

Enjoy your 4th of July Holiday

Here are a few great links/websites to help you find more information about what’s happening around the area for 4^th of July fireworks and celebrations.    

On behalf of Jean McCarty, Bob Donovan, Jack Bowes, Kevin Bachelder and myself we want to wish you and yours a wonderful, safe and enjoyable holiday…  Although we usually have blog postings every few days, note that our next blog posting will be in one week on July 8^th..  So hopefully you can get outside, try something new and enjoy this wonderful weather…

Remember – to keep your email open and “open a new tab” for one of the following websites, put your mouse over the web address below, hold the CTRL key down and left click on the web address…  this always leave the current web page you are viewing “open” and opens a “new tab” for the web address you are left clicking on…

This website is an alphabetical list of towns & cities and when the dates and times their fireworks will be held:

http://www.bostoncentral.com/events/massachusetts_fireworks/p21018.php

This website is a listing by date, of when towns & cities will be hosting their fireworks:

http://www.bostoncentral.com/events/massachusetts_fireworks_2010/p5389.php

This website is the office Boston 4^th of July celebration website:

http://www.july4th.org/

Some other wonderful websites to visit about what’s happening all over New Engalnd – jot only this 4^th of July holiday but throughout the summer and fall..

http://www.travel-new-england.com

http://www.visitnewengland.com/

http://www.discovernewengland.org/

And the official website for the War of 1812 Bicentennial Commemoration Celebration in Boston July 30^th-July 5^th, 2012

http://www.opsailboston.com/