How to Delete Document Queue From Printer
Sometimes, documents you’re printing get stuck in the printer’s queue, preventing further documents from being printed. Here’s how to fix information technology when that happens.
Whether you lot’re using a local or
shared network printer, sometimes printing doesn’t go quite right. If you’ve tried
troubleshooting obvious printer problems—paper jams, no paper, low ink or toner, or simply restarting the printer—it’s time to turn your attention toward the print queue. Oftentimes, simply clearing and restarting the print spooler—the software that prepares and manages printing documents—tin fix the problem. If that fails, you may need to cancel one or more documents in your print queue and run into if that gets things going once more.
This should work in Windows Vista, seven, 8, and 10.
Articulate and Restart the Print Spooler
Immigration and restarting the print spooler should be your offset stride when trying to fix stuck impress jobs considering it won’t really cancel any of your currently printing documents. Instead, it restarts things and proceeds equally if all those documents had just been sent to the printer for the first time.
To practise this, you’ll stop the Print Spooler service, delete the temporary cache Windows uses to spool print jobs, and then start the service again. Nosotros’re going to show you two ways to do this. Get-go, we’ll look at how to practice it manually, and then nosotros’ll expect at how to create a batch script so that y’all can do it any time you desire with just a click.
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How to Set up Up a Shared Network Printer in Windows vii, 8, or 10
Clear and Restart the Print Spooler Manually
To clear and restart the print spooler manually, you’ll first need to stop the Print Spooler service. Click Outset, type “services,” and and so click the Services app.
In the correct-manus pane of the Services window, find and double-click the “Print Spooler” service to open its properties window.
In the properties window, on the “General” tab, click the “Stop” button. Y’all’ll be restarting the service a bit subsequently, and then go ahead and go out this properties window open up for now.
Burn upwards File Explorer and browse to the following location—or just re-create and paste this text into your File Explorer address bar and hit Enter:
%windir%\System32\spool\PRINTERS
Y’all’ll likely be asked to provide permission to admission this folder. Go alee and accept.
Delete the contents of the unabridged binder by pressing Ctrl+A and then the Delete cardinal.
Now, render to that open backdrop window in the Services app and click “Start” to restart the Impress Spooler service. Click “OK” to close the backdrop window and y’all can also go ahead and get out the Services app.
As soon as you lot restart the Print Spooler service, all the documents in your queue are immediately respooled and sent to the printer. If all goes well, they should commencement printing again right away.
Articulate and Restart the Print Spooler with a Batch File
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How to Write a Batch Script on Windows
If clearing your print queue by restarting the Print Spooler service is something you retrieve yous’ll be doing more than one time—or you’d just rather non go through the problem of using the Services app—y’all can also create a simple
batch file
to practise the chore.
Fire up Notepad or your preferred text editor. Re-create and paste the following text as carve up lines into the blank certificate:
net stop spooler
del /Q /F /S "%windir%\System32\spool\PRINTERS\*.*"
net start spooler
Side by side, you’ll save your certificate as a .bat file. Open the “File” bill of fare and click the “Save Equally” command. In the “Save As” window, browse to the location y’all desire to salve the file. On the “Save as type” drop-down bill of fare, choose the “All files (*.*)” entry. Name your file whatsoever you like, but include “.bat” at the end. Click “Save” when you’re washed.
Yous tin can now double-click that batch file to clear the print spooler whenever you want. Better yet, create a shortcut to the batch file and so place that shortcut where it makes the nigh sense to you—desktop, Start menu, or taskbar—and you’ll accept one-click access to clear and restart the print spooler whenever you want.
Restart or Abolish Some or All of Your Printing Documents
If clearing and restarting the print spooler didn’t do the trick, the next pace you’ll desire to accept is to run across if y’all tin can identify—and abolish—whatever certificate is stuck. Sometimes, clearing a single stuck document will get your printer going again and any other print jobs in the queue can end press normally. Other times, y’all might have to cancel all the currently press documents and then try printing them again.
Click Start, type “devices,” and then click the “Devices and Printers” Command Panel app.
In the Devices and Printers window, right-click the printer y’all’re having trouble with and so click the “See what’due south printing” control to open the impress queue.
The print queue window shows the print jobs currently awaiting printing. If a single document is causing the problem and you take more than one document in the queue, it’southward ordinarily the earliest document that’s stuck. Click the header for the “Submitted” column then that the documents are bundled in the order they were submitted, with the earliest at the pinnacle. Note that in our example, nosotros arranged the columns so they would fit in our screenshot better, so your “Submitted” column may exist farther to the right.
Right-click the earliest print job and so select “Restart” from the context card.
If your printer cranks up and starts printing after restarting the document, you’re good to go. Otherwise, you’ll need to try canceling the certificate. Right-click the document over again and select the “Cancel” command.
Click “Yes” to confirm that you want to cancel the certificate.
If the cancellation was successful, the document should disappear from the print queue and the printer volition showtime printing the side by side document in line. If the document didn’t get canceled at all—or if the document did get canceled merely press is nevertheless not happening—you’ll need to try canceling all the documents in the queue. Click the “Printer” menu then choose the “Cancel all documents” command.
All the documents in the queue should disappear and y’all can effort press a new document to see if it works.
If restarting the print spooler and immigration documents from the print queue didn’t fix your printing problem—and your printer was working successfully previously—then you lot’ll likely demand to plow your attention toward things like updating or reinstalling your printer drivers or moving on to any diagnostics are provided by the manufacturer of your printer. Just hopefully, these steps have helped gear up your stuck print job before going that far.
