13.6 Designing Your Output Queue Environment
Use the following sample configurations to design your out-
put environment. Your configuration will probably combine
elements from several of these examples.
Configuration
For More
Information
Section 13.6.7
Distributed printing Section 13.6.8
13.6.1 Simple Output Queue Configuration: For Limited
Printing Needs
Figure 13-4 illustrates a very simple queue configuration.
This configuration is appropriate for a standalone system
supporting a single printer.
By default, when a user submits a print job with the PRINT
command, the job is placed in the queue named SYS$PRINT.
To set up a single default printer queue on a standalone
system, name the queue SYS$PRINT.
13.6.2 Mixed Printers: Specialized Output Execution
Queues
If you have several different kinds printers (for example, an
LN03 printer, an LA210 printer, and an LP27 line printer),
you must set up a separate queue for each printer. The op-
tions, such as the default form or device control library, that
you use with these queues will probably differ according to
the printer to which the queue's output is sent. For example,
the default form for a line printer might have a width of 132
columns, while the default form for an LN03 printer might
have a width of 80 columns. Figure 13-5 illustrates such a
configuration.
13.6.3 PostScript Printing
The operating system does not include software to support
PostScript printing. In order to print PostScript files, you
must have either of the following:
.
A printer capable of printing PostScript files, and support-
ing software
.
Software that provides PostScript-to-sixel printing, and a
supported printer
For more information, see your Digital sales representative.
Digital recommends you set up your LAT queues as autostart
queues with failover lists to ensure that these queues are
highly available. Because LAT printers are usually shared
among users of multiple systems or VMSclusters, many
users will be affected if a LAT queue is unavailable. For more
information on the autostart feature, see Section 13.4. For in-
formation about how to create autostart queues with failover
lists, see Section 13.7.2.2.
13.6.5 Generic Output Queues: Distributing the Work
Load
If you have more than one printer of the same kind (for
example, if you have three line printers), you should use
generic queues to balance the print load among the printers.
Figure 13-7 illustrates such a configuration.
For information about how to create a generic queue, see
Section 13.7.2.3.
13.6.6 VMScluster Queues: Sharing Devices in a Cluster
Figure 13-8 illustrates a typical VMScluster output queue
configuration. For information about VMScluster queue
configurations, see VMScluster Systems for OpenVMS .
13.6.7 Spooled Printers: Printing from Applications
If your system runs application programs that write output
directly to a printer rather than submitting it to an output
queue, or if you will be using LAT queues, you should spool
your printers. Spooling your printers causes application pro-
grams to write output to an intermediate storage device so
that the printer remains available to other users while the
program is running.
Figure 13-9 illustrates an output configuration with spooled
printers.
For more information about spooling printers see Section 7.6.2.1.
The Distributed Queuing Service (DQS) is a layered product
that extends the printing capabilities of the OpenVMS queu-
ing system to a distributed environment. DQS enables users
to print files on output devices attached to remote nodes in
your network.
For more information, see your DQS documentation or your
Digital sales representative.