Printing from an Invisible Network

ID: Q77054

The information in this article applies to:

Microsoft Windows versions 3.0, 3.0a, 3.1, 3.11
Microsoft MS-DOS operating system versions 3.x, 4.x, 5.x, 6.0

SUMMARY

If you are experiencing problems printing to to a network printer using an Invisible Network, the TRUNCATE command may help solve those problems.

MORE INFORMATION

When you print to a network printer over the Invisible Network, print jobs are automatically queued in the network print spooler. These print jobs are handled in a "first-in first-out" method and will not print until the print spooler receives the entire job.

The problem arises when the print job is large, or there is much activity on the network, and the print spooler does not know when the end-of-file is reached for that particular job. In this situation, the print spooler waits until it thinks it has the whole job or until the application is closed before the print process is carried out. With the TRUNCATE parameter set too low, the spooler may start printing the job before the entire job is received, resulting in scrambled output with another print job.

With an Invisible Network, the wait period can be modified by using the following statement in the the AUTOEXEC.BAT file:

truncate xxx

For example, TRUNCATE 10 cuts off the print stream after waiting 10 seconds to receive the entire print job. The value xxx can range from 1-250 seconds of waiting before the printer will start printing. The default for the TRUNCATE command is no print truncation at all; it will not cut off the print stream.

According to Invisible Software technical support, a value of 10 is usually adequate for the print spooler to receive the job and continue the printing process. For word processing print jobs where the entire job is sent to the printer at once, TRUNCATE 1 is suggested. However, database print jobs should use a higher number for the TRUNCATE parameter because a database application may send some information to the printer, then search the data base for more information, send more data to the printer, and continue this process until the database criteria has fully been met.

The products included here are manufactured by vendors independent of Microsoft; we make no warranty, implied or otherwise, regarding these products' performance or reliability.

Additional query words: 6.22 3.00 3.00a 3.10 3.11 3.x 4.x 5.00 6.00 6.20 6.21 3rdparty

Keywords :
Version : MS-DOS:3.x,4.x,5.x,6.0; WINDOWS:3.0,3.0a,3.1,3.11
Platform : MS-DOS WINDOWS
Issue type :