Printing Preferences and Properties

After you have installed a printer, you can adjust the printer preferences and properties. Preferences are things such as the default orientation (portrait or landscape), page order, pages per sheet, and paper/quality options(including size, copy count, print quality, and other settings). Properties are things such as printer sharing, device settings, and other more techie printer-related features. You can make changes to either set of options. Look first at the preferences; these are things you are more likely to change. Look second at the properties; these are things you may change if you are a control freak or if you are having printer problems.

Changing Printing Preferences

Printing preferences are settings such as the order in which pages are printed (from beginning to end of a document, or from the end to beginning), orientation (portrait or landscape), and paper source. If you always print a certain way, you can change these settings.

Changing the printer's preferences changes them for all documents you print on this printer. If you want to change settings for just one document, change the settings in that document instead.

tip

The default printer is indicated with a checkmark. To select another printer as the default, right-click the icon for that printer and select Set as Default Printer.

To change the printing preferences for all print jobs, follow these steps:

1.	Display the printer icon by clicking the Start button and then clicking Control Panel. Click the Printers and Other Hardware category. Click the Printers and Faxes Control Panel icon in the lower half of the Control Panel window. You'll see a list of all the installed printers and faxes (see Figure 19.7). Figure 19.7. To customize your printer, first display the Printers and Faxes Control Panel.
2.	Select the printer you want to modify.
3.	Click Select printing preferences in the Task pane. You'll see the Printing Preferences dialog box (see Figure 19.8). Figure 19.8. Use the options in this dialog box to control the orientation, page order, and paper source for all print jobs printed with this printer.
4.	On the Layout tab, select a default orientation and a default page order.
5.	Click the Paper/Quality tab. Select a default paper source.
6.	Click OK.

Changing Printing Properties

In addition to printing preferences, you can view and change printer properties. These are more technical details of how your printer worksfor instance, when the printer is available, the port to which the printer is attached, whether printer sharing is enabled, and other options. Follow these steps to modify printing properties:

1.	Display the printer icon by clicking the Start button and then clicking Control Panel. Click the Printers and Other Hardware category. Then click the Printers and Faxes Control Panel icon. You'll see a list of all the installed printers and faxes (refer to Figure 19.7).
2.	Click the printer you want to customize and then select Set printer properties. You'll see the Properties dialog box for your particular printer (see Figure 19.9). Figure 19.9. On the General tab, you can see which features your printer supports, as well as the printer speed.
3.	On the General tab, change the printer name. If the printer is used on a network, you can also type a location and comment used to identify the printer. tip If you want help with an option, right-click the option and select What's This. Most instances refer you to your printer documentation since the various options are specific to the printer itself.
4.	To change the port to which the printer is connected, click the Ports tab and then select from the available ports listed.
5.	To set printer-sharing options (more for network printers), use the Sharing tab.
6.	To change technical details, such as when the printer is available, the driver that is used, how spooling is handled, and other similar aspects of the printer, use the Advanced tab. note Spooling is when Windows XP takes the request for a print job and stores the document on your hard drive so that you can continue working. The spooler then sends the document that was temporarily stored on the hard drive to the printer.
7.	Click the Device Settings tab to make changes for the paper trays, printer memory, and font substitution.
8.	Click OK to confirm your changes.