Keep Spooled Documents for Fast Reprints
Do you have documents that you print frequently? For example forms or advertisement flyers? Are you often in a rush for these documents to be printed?
Well, do you know there is a handy trick in Microsoft Windows (XP or later) that allows you to print these documents speedily without even needing you to start up the application that created them?
Here is how:
Save Spooled Documents in Windows
When you send a document (or image) for print in Windows, it will process and temporarily save the document in a print spool. You can view the spooled documents by clicking the printer icon in your taskbar (when you have sent a document for print) or when you double click on your printer icon in the Control Panel of Windows. After your document is printed, windows will automatically delete it from the spool by default.
However, do you know you can keep the document in the spool list for faster reprints? Doing this speeds up the print because the computer does not need to reprocess the document for printing again if you print it again from the spooled document list. And this could save a lot of time for documents or images sent for printing from complex applications like Adobe Photoshop as you do not need to start the application again. The only tradeoff is that hard drive space is required for keeping the saved document in the spool, but hard dive space is so affordable these days, it is a small sacrifice for the speed you gain.
Set your printer to keep printed documents
To set your printer to keep printed documents, first select the "Printers" icon in the Control Panel. There a list of printers installed on your system will be displayed. Right click on your specific printer's icon and choose "Properties."
Click on the "Advanced" tab, and click to check the "Keep printed documents" box and click OK. Now your printer will save all processed documents that are sent for printing.
Reprint saved documents in spool
Now when you send a document for print, you will notice that after it gets printed, it will not disappear from the print spool anymore. To reprint it any time, you need not re-launch the application that created it. Simply click on your printer's icon in the Control Panel again (you can create a shortcut on your desktop for fast access) to bring up its spooled document list, right click on the document you want reprinted and select "Restart." To delete the document from your spool list permanently, simply right click on it and select "Cancel."
Caveat
A relatively minor drawback of this process is that every document is saved in your spool list - not only the one you want to reprint regularly. So, you should set your printer to keep printed documents just before you print the document you want to have reprinted regularly. In this way - it will always show up at the top of the list. In addition, it is good to conduct a periodic clearing of documents in the spool list that are not needed so as to save hard drive space.
Thankfully this is easy to do as like in windows file lists, the list of documents in the spool can be rapidly selected as a group with a mouse, or individually by holding down the ‘Ctrl' key, or as a series using the ‘Shift' key.
