PPT: Turning off Background Printing Increases Print Speed

When you print from PowerPoint, the print spooling operation may be slow.

Slow print spooling can be caused by two different conditions:

• The background printing option is turned on in PowerPoint.
  
  -or-
• The printer settings are not set correctly.

1. On the Tools menu, click Options.
2. Click the General tab.
3. Click to clear the Print In Background check box.

To check the applicable printer settings from within Windows 95, follow these steps:

1. On the Windows Start menu, point to Settings, and then click Printers.
2. Right-click the appropriate printer icon, and then click Properties on the menu that appears.
3. Click the Details tab, and then click Spool Settings.
4. Be sure the "Spool print jobs so program finishes printing faster" option is selected.
5. Be sure the "Start printing after first page is spooled" option is selected.

Background printing is enabled by default in PowerPoint 97. There are two modes of printing: background and foreground. When you print with background printing turned on, you can resume work on your presentation very quickly. The print job is sent to the printer in the background. However, it takes longer to print a job in the background, and PowerPoint performs more slowly while a background print job is being spooled.

When you print with background printing turned off, you cannot resume work on your presentation until the entire print job has been spooled. However, the print job is sent much faster using this setting.

While you are printing in the background, a printer icon appears on the status bar. You can cancel the print job by double-clicking this icon. You can queue several PowerPoint print jobs to one or more printers. When a print job is in progress, a printer icon appears on the Windows taskbar. Double-click the icon to open that printer's queue.