LMPRINT Print Manager General Information (60235)

SUMMARY

The following are questions and answers about the LMPRINT Print Manager:

Q. What is the difference between LMPRINT and PMPRINT?

A. LMPRINT and PMPRINT are, for the most part, functionally the same. The only significant difference is that LMPRINT supports the printing of separator pages, and PMPRINT does not. This functionality was removed from PMPRINT so that it could support PostScript printers (which currently cannot print out separator pages, although this is being worked on). Therefore, use PMPRINT for PostScript printers and LMPRINT for other printers.
Q. Jobs sent to a print queue are never printed, they just sit in the queue. Why does this happen?

A. The Print Manager is careful to only print jobs on the type of printer for which they are targeted. If there is a mismatch, the job will not print. Normally, it is a mismatch between the printer driver associated with a job and the printer driver associated with the printers attached to the queue (and thus the queue itself). This situation should not occur if the Print Queue and the associated printers have been set up correctly (see information below).

This situation may occur if the jobs are sent to the print queue while it is being held, and the queue is changed to redirect output to a different type of printer (one using a different driver). When the print queue is released, jobs that arrived prior to the change in printers will have associated with them the old printer drivers and will remain in the queue (since they do not match the current printer).
Q. How does the Print Manager associate a printer driver with a queued job?

A. Since the Print Manager knows nothing about the internal content of any job (including print information), the Print Manager associates a job with the first printer driver in the list of printer drivers used by the queue. This implies (although it is not immediately obvious) that if a print queue is set up to provide direct output to more than one printer, ALL of those printers must be using the SAME printer driver.
Q. To share a printer that is attached to a COM port, how should that printer be assigned to a print spool?

A. Sharing a printer attached to a COM port is (essentially) no different than sharing a printer attached to an LPT port (however, unlike printers attached to LPT ports, COM port printers do have to be attached to the computer on which the print queue resides). To share a COM port printer (local or remote), the following steps must be performed:
1. On the computer with the COM port printer (ServerA), share the COM port utilized by the printer with the following command:
```
            net share <sharename>=<COM port> /COMM
								
```
2. On the computer with the print queue (ServerB), redirect a local LPT port to the remote COM port with the following command:
```
            net use LPTX \\<ServerA>\<sharename> /COMM
								
```
3. Using the Control Panel and the Print Manager, create a printer associated with the redirected LPT port that uses the appropriate printer driver.
4. Create a print queue to spool output to the printer either by using the Print Manager or the command-line interface. For example:
```
            net share <printQueue> /print
            net print <printQueue> /driver:<PrinterDriver> /route:LPTx
```
Q. What is the best way to build printers and print queues?

A. It is safest (because you can always see what is being assigned) to use the Print Manager. The command-line interface is designed to support the same functionality; however, because not all assignments (such as printer drivers) are explicitly required, it is easy to create print queues and printers that do not match.