The Print Assistant application (Print Assistant) lets you configure your workstation so you can print on printers connected to the network or to other computers on your network as if they were attached directly to your workstation.
Two terms that are important to understand are print server and print queue. A print server is a computer on your network that handles print requests for attached printers. A print queue is a mechanism that computers use to send print requests to printers in an orderly fashion and to prevent simultaneous print requests from interleaving.
Printers are frequently identified by their queue names; for example, if you send a print job to the SYSTEM printer, it is likely that it is actually the SYSTEM queue.
Print servers can support multiple print queues.
To use Print Assistant, you first need to set up your workstation so that it knows which print servers, protocols, and printers (or print queues) to use. You can get this information from your network administrator. You then need to map your workstation's parallel ports (LPT devices) to the printers you want to use.
Once you have set up your workstation for remote printing, the Print Assistant sends the information to the print server or printer using the appropriate protocol. Print servers can support more than one protocol at a time.
The Print Assistant supports the following protocols:
NFS print servers are more sophisticated than LPR/ LPD print servers or Stream printers in that NFS print servers identify their print queues for you, and let you stop print requests before they print, if necessary.
When using an LPR/LPD printer server, you must know the names of the print queues on the print server. Once the Print Assistant submits print requests to the print server, you cannot stop them.
When using the Stream protocol, the Print Assistant opens a TCP/IP connection to the specified port and sends the document to the printer, making sure that each line ends with a carriage return and line feed. Once you submit your print request, you cannot stop it.
To open the Print Assistant window, either choose the Network Connections... option from the Printer menu in the Print Manager or double-click the Print Assistant icon in the Cisco Suite 100 group.
The Windows 3.x Print Assistant window appears.
The Cisco TCP/IP Suite Print Assistant window contains three tab dialog boxes:
If you have not added servers to the Print Assistant, the Servers tab appears first. Once you have added servers, the Connections tab appears.
The Print Assistant window may or may not contain an OtherNet button. If your workstation uses additional network file systems, the name of the other network file system appears on this button. Click this button to access other network file systems that your workstation uses.
To close the Print Assistant window, click the Close button in any tab.
To set up your workstation so that you can print using the Print Assistant:
Note
Your network administrator must configure the print servers for NFS or LPR/LPD printing before you use them.
The following sections describe these activities in more detail.
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