NetWare 4.1/9000 Print Services

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Planning Your Printing Environment
Understanding Network Printing
Print Objects
Print queues, printers, and print servers are all defined as objects in NetWare
Services and can be configured to run in either a NetWare 4 Directory
Services environment or in a NetWare 2 or 3 bindery services environment.
NetWare Services provides two main utilities for creating and configuring
these objects: NetWare Administrator (available on Windows clients) and
PCONSOLE (available on DOS workstations).
Planning Your Printing Configuration
Deciding where to position your network printers is a crucial step in
planning and configuring your printing environment. The following sections
provide information on locating and managing output of network printers.
Locating Your Printers
Attaching all printers directly to servers may yield security and
administrative advantages. However, attaching printers to workstations may
yield increased flexibility and accessibility. The ideal mix for each
installation is different and will change as your needs change.
The number of printers that can be attached to each server or workstation is
limited first by the port hardware. Most Intel-based PCs have a maximum of
three parallel and four serial ports.
CAUTION: The type of port used must match the type of port on the printer. The printer must be
set up and cabled properly as described in the printer's documentation.
Improving Output By Adding Resources
In some situations, you can increase the printing output on your network by
using additional resources.
More than one printer may service a single queue. This can be useful when
you have similar printers in close proximity by providing increased
throughput and avoiding work stoppage if one printer fails.
More than one queue may be assigned to a single printer. Among other
things, this allows a full queue attached to a failed printer to be assigned to a
running printer, which will then print jobs from both the original and the
newly added queue.