Redirect Print Jobs

Sometimes your local printer will not work for various reasons (it's out of ink, there's a nasty paper jam, it's printing poorly, or whatever), but you still need to get the document printed. It's time to redirect the print job.

This techniquesending print jobs to printer ports that will then send the jobs to network print devicescan be useful to keep your work flowing while troubleshooting the faulty print device. (See why the language lesson was important?) You can also use this technique to change the port a printer prints to even after the printer is installed. To change the port a printer is using, you use the options on the Ports tab in the Properties dialog box for that printer.

Let's say, for example, that your coworker has just accidentally kicked the print device connected to your computer. Now the device is malfunctioning, and you have a big report that needs to be printed. However, your coworker has set up a printer on his computer and has shared it out. Here's what you can do to get that job to a printer:

1.	Open the Properties dialog box for the printer, click the Ports tab, and then click the Add Port button to open the Printer Ports dialog box.
2.	With the Local Port option selected, click the New Port button to open the Port Name dialog box.
3.	In the "Enter a port name" box, enter the name of the port, as shown in Figure 8-13. Use the UNC syntax of \\servername\printer, just as if you were setting up a network printer. Figure 8-13. Redirecting a print job.
4.	Click OK to close the Port Name dialog box, close the Printer Ports dialog box, and then click OK to close the printer's Properties dialog box.

You have now set up a new local port, and remember, even though print jobs will now be sent over the network, the port is considered local because the printer software installed locally at your machine manages these print jobs.