Abstract: Facilities are provided within an operating system for supporting deferred printing of print jobs. The process of spooling a print job and the process of despooling the print job are decoupled, such that a printer need not be available at the time of spooling. Print jobs are spooled in a device-independent format, such as the enhanced metafile format. The print jobs may be spooled without a printer driver being installed for a target printer or without the target printer being connected to the system. Later, when the target printer becomes available, the print job is despooled and printed. A configuration database holds different printer configurations that list available printers in different environments. For example, a user may have a different configuration for printers available when he uses his computer at home, at work and on the road, respectively. The configurations help the user to identify the printers that are currently available and those that are available in other settings.

Abstract: Facilities are provided within an operating system for supporting deferred printing of print jobs. The process of spooling a print job and the process of despooling the print job are decoupled, such that a printer need not be available at the time of spooling. Print jobs are spooled in a device-independent format, such as the enhanced metafile format. The print jobs may be spooled without a printer driver being installed for a target printer or without the target printer being connected to the system. Later, when the target printer becomes available, the print job is despooled and printed. A configuration database holds different printer configurations that list available printers in different environments. For example, a user may have a different configuration for printers available when he uses his computer at home, at work and on the road, respectively. The configurations help the user to identify the printers that are currently available and those that are available in other settings.

Abstract: Print jobs are automatically and transparently spooled in a device-independent format, such as an enhanced metafile format. The enhanced metafile format provides a format into which documents are readily converted and which occupies a minimal amount of storage space. Each spooled print job is asynchronously printed relative to a program that requested the print job. Such spooled print jobs are de-spooled in a background processor mode. An operating system provides the resources for converting a print job into enhanced metafile format and spooling the print job in the enhanced metafile format.

Abstract: An operating system provides a point-and-print capability to users of the workstation. The point-and-print capability allows a user to print on any printer available within a distributed system by simply selecting a printer and requesting to print on the printer. The retrieval of configuration information and installation of the printer is performed transparently relative to the user of the workstation. The required printer configuration information is retrieved from a database that is maintained at a network server for the network that includes the target printer. A heuristic technique is employed to obtain complete printer configuration information when such printer configuration is not fully available from the network server.

Abstract: A computer method and system for configuring device driver is provided. In a preferred embodiment, a device driver comprises a minidriver associated with each output device and a universal driver. Each minidriver implements a plurality of minidriver functions for controlling the outputting of data to the output device by invoking functions of the universal driver. During execution of a program, the program selects an output device and invokes the minidriver functions of the minidriver associated with the selected output device. An initialization function of each minidriver invokes an initialization function of the universal driver passing an indication of and attributes of the selected output device. Other minidriver functions invoke an analogous function of the universal driver passing an indication of the selected output device. The initialization function of the universal driver processes the passed attributes and stores the indication and the processed attributes.

Abstract: Print jobs are automatically and transparently spooled in a device-independent format, such as an enhanced metafile format. The enhanced metafile format provides a format into which documents are readily converted and which occupies a minimal amount of storage space. Each spooled print job is asynchronously printed relative to a program that requested the print job. Such spooled print jobs are de-spooled in a background processor mode. An operating system provides the resources for converting a print job into enhanced metafile format and spooling the print job in the enhanced metafile format.