Creating Printer Pool Queues

Mac OS X supports a special type of printer queue called a printer pool, which can load-balance print jobs between multiple printers. Essentially, a printer pool is a queue that automatically sends a print job to the next available printer on a list you define. It takes only a few steps to enable a shared printer pool on Mac OS X Server.

To create a printer pool

1.	On the server, open the Printer Setup Utility, and add all the printers you wish to pool together.
2.	Select all the printers you want to pool by holding down the Command key while you make your selections (Figure 7.47). Figure 7.47. Selecting multiple printers in the Printer List window.
3.	Choose Printers > Pool Printers. The Printer Pool dialog opens.
4.	Edit the pool's name, and click Create (Figure 7.48). Figure 7.48. Creating a printer pool from the selected printer.
5.	Return to the Server Admin tool's printer queue list to find your new printer pool queue (Figure 7.49). Figure 7.49. Viewing a Printer Pool queue using Server Admin. Enable print sharing for the printer pool queue as you would for any other printer. When users print to the queue, CUPS will decide which printer in the pool is to receive the next print job (Figure 7.50). Figure 7.50. Sharing a printer pool is similar to sharing a single printer.