Configuring the Printer Driver

There are two dialog boxes in Print Manager that you can use to configure Windows NT printer drivers. You access both dialog boxes by selecting the printer you want to configure, and then choosing Properties from the Printer menu.

The resulting Printer Properties dialog box has a Setup button and a Details button, among others. By choosing Details you can then choose several other options, including Job Defaults.

• Choosing the Setup button displays a Printer Setup dialog box that you can use to tell the spooler how the print device's hardware is configured. For instance, you can specify what forms are loaded in the device's trays, or how much memory is installed in the device, or how a plotter's pens are arranged.
• Choosing the Job Defaults button displays a Document Properties dialog box that you can use to define default settings. For instance, it enables you to define which form Windows-based applications should use by default, whether to print portrait or landscape, and at what resolution to print. Many Windows-based applications have a Print Setup option; that option usually displays the Job Defaults dialog box.

As a general rule, use the Setup button to set options that affect every job sent to the print device. Use the Job Defaults option to provide default values that network users are free to change from one job to the next.

For more information on the what Windows NT printer drivers do and how they are composed, see the following section.