The computing industry is full of obscure technical terms like printer spooling. Spooling happens automatically in the background, and as long as it’s working properly, you may never notice the feature. But since you are reading this article, there is probably a problem with printing on your machine and you need to fix this mysterious spooler problem.
What does printer spooling mean?
Printer spooling has been around for decades and is a bit like spooling thread or cable. If you have more than you can easily handle at one time, you wind it up on a spool and remove only what is needed for the job.
Since most printers can only receive one document at a time, your computer’s operating system uses a print spooler to queue documents. Printers have limited memory, so a long document may require spooling. In this case, the printer queue is divided into two or more documents.
Both Windows and macOS have printer spooling features designed to prevent printer problems. The term originates from when computers stored and retrieved information from magnetic tape drives. The drive physically unwinds and unwinds the tape as it reads and writes data.
Printer spooling against the printer queue
Printer spooling may look like printer queuing, and the two are related. The difference is that the print spooler is a service or system program that runs in the background and handles whatever print job you send. A printer queue is a list of print jobs, and there is one for each printer or print service you have installed on your computer.
It’s easy to clear the print queue on Windows and Mac when a document gets stuck. Clearing the queue is a quick fix for many printer problems, but it doesn’t always work.
Sometimes the print spool can also have a problem. It may stop working due to system instability, or the printer drivers may be outdated or corrupted. These problems cause printer spooler errors that interfere with printing.
How to fix printer spooling in Windows
To fix printer rotation in Windows, you need to restart the system service that does this. It’s easy to do from Task Manager.
First of Windows + S Select the keyboard shortcut or the search box on the taskbar to open the search window, then start typing task manager and select the program when it appears in the search results. Task Manager shows a list of all the processes running on your computer. You can find the spooler service here, but it’s better to go to the Services tab.
Next, select Three horizontal lines at the top left to open the sidebar, then select ServicesYou will see a tab with a long list of services.
You can limit the list by starting with spooler. Right click Spoolerservices and choose restartTo stop and restart it. This should resolve any printer spooling errors in Windows.
How to fix printer rotation on Mac
To fix printer rotation on a Mac, you can reset the macOS printing system to give it a fresh start. This is easy to do, but note that macOS will remove your printers, so you’ll need to add your printer again.
First, open the Apple menu at the top left of the screen and select it System settingsthen type or find printer in the search box Printers and scanners in the left sidebar
Next, in Printers and scanners tab, right-click on the list of printers and select Reset the printing system from the pop-up menu, and confirm by selecting reset Note from the pop-up window that this will remove the printers you added.
Then add your printer by selecting the option Add a printer, scanner or fax machine Press at the bottom, then select your device from the printer list and select it add Button.
If you need more help restoring a printer, check out our complete guide to adding a printer to your Mac.
Other printer problems
Printer rotation is not the only problem that can stop printing. If the solutions listed above don’t help, our guide to solving the most common printer problems can restore your productivity.
If you accidentally selected an old printer that you no longer use, you can set a new default printer to prevent this problem from happening again.
Better printing
With the printer spooling issues resolved, you should be able to continue printing your document without any problems. If you would like to be able to print faster or with higher quality, you may want to check out the best printers on the market to find a better solution.
If you need a printer that can scan and copy, you should check out our list of the best all-in-one printers to find something that fits your budget while meeting your needs.
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