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Quicker Printing From Your Portable Computer

You use your laptop on the road, but you probably print the documents you've been working on at home or in the office. How do you remember which files need to be printed and where the files are located? Timothy Luoma of Gainesville, Florida, suggests having Windows pause printing until you reconnect to the printer. The details vary from one version of Windows to the next, but the steps are about the same.

Before you start working, choose Start, Settings, Printers. Right-click the default printer (the one you normally print with), and choose Work Offline or Use Printer Offline (for a networked printer) or Pause Printing (for a local printer). You can do this at any time, whether before you disconnect the machine from your printer or after you've left the office. When you do your work, choose the File, Print command as soon as your document is ready for printing, just as you would if the printer were still available. The printer icon will appear in the tray area near the clock on the taskbar, but no error messages about its inability to print will appear. Double-click the icon to see a log of the files you'll print later. If you decide not to print an item, select it in the printer window and press Delete. If you're using Windows 98 SE or Windows Me, the OS will remind you that you have jobs to print the next time you reboot. The Printers Folder will tell you how many jobs are in the queue, and you'll be prompted to print them, delete them, or leave them paused.

Once you reconnect your portable computer to your printer, you can tell Windows to print any or all of the items. In Win 98 SE or Me, simply click Yes to answer the prompt that appears after you double-click the printer icon on the taskbar. If you don't see a printer icon there, choose Start, Settings, Printers and double-click the appropriate icon in the Printers window. Deselect Printer, Work Offline or Printer, Use Printer Offline (for a networked printer) or Printer, Pause Printing (for a local printer) to return to your normal printer setting. In some versions of Windows, your documents will begin printing immediately. In other versions, you must select all the print jobs you want to print, right-click a selected item, and deselect Pause Printing to disable the pause for those documents. Voilà! Nous avons beaucoup des printouts!