You can print files with Network Client by sending them from your computer to printers that are shared by members of your workgroup. Connecting to a shared printer allows you to use it as if it were physically connected to your computer. You connect your computer to a shared printer by assigning a parallel port (LPT) to it. You can use port LPT1, LPT2, or LPT3.
To connect your computer to a shared printer
1. Display the pop-up interface, as described earlier in this chapter.
2. Choose the Show Printers button by pressing ALT+S.
3. In the Port field of the Printer Connection dialog box, type two backslashes and the number of the parallel port (LPT) that you want to assign to the shared printer, and then press TAB.
4. In the Path field, type the name of the computer and shared printer that you want to connect to. For example, to connect to a printer named Laser that is physically connected to a computer named Clive, type \\clive\laser in the Path field.
5. If you want to connect your computer to this printer every time you log on to your workgroup, make sure an X appears in the Reconnect At Startup check box.
To select or clear the Reconnect At Startup check box, press ALT+R.
6. To connect to the shared printer specified in the Path field, choose the Connect button by pressing ALT+C.
You can also issue the net use command at the MS-DOS command prompt to connect to a shared printer. For information on the net use command and its syntax, see the Help for net use.
For information about browsing for shared printers and disconnecting from a shared printer, press F1 in the pop-up interface, or see the Help for the net view and net use commands.
Note
Your workgroup may include computers that share printers but do not appear in the Browse dialog box. You can try connecting to these computers, even though you cannot browse for their names.
After you connect your computer to a shared printer, you can print formatted files from the application you used to create them. You can also print unformatted text files from MS-DOS with the print command. For more information, see the Help for the print command.
You can also display the pop-up interface to pause, resume, or delete a print job, and to view the print queue, which is the list of files that are waiting to print on a particular printer. For information, see the Help for the pop-up interface or for the net print command.