The introduction of the Windows operating system has done great things for printing, but there are still many steps which can be taken to further optimise the way that documents are printed. Are you interested in optimising the performance of your printer, in order to improve the quality of your printing, or the speed? Besides using good ink cartridges, one of the best steps that you can take to optimise the performance of your printer is simply to make it a higher priority for your computer's central processing unit.

Sometimes printing can cause you to grind your teeth, simply because the wait between telling your computer to print and actually having the printed pages can be quite long at times. Fortunately, there are some steps that you can take in order to speed up the performance of your printer, as well as the way that your computer and printer communicate in order to make this process a little less arduous.

The first step that you can take is to set your computer's print manager priority setting to high. Print Manager is the name for a print spooling program which comes bundled with the Windows operating system, allowing you to print documents while you continue to use your computer. Background printing like this relies on your CPU or central processing unit, forcing it to essentially work double duty which can significantly slow down your computer's application programs. There are three options available to you using Print Manager's background printing capability:


- Low Priority - This priority gives very low CPU priority to printing, granting higher priority to the other programs on your computer. With this option, printing will run very slowly but you can continue to work on your computer without issue.

- Medium Priority - This priority offers near equal priority to both printing and other programs which are running on your computer at the time.

- High Priority - High Priority grants the highest CPU priority to printing, slowing down the other programs that are running on your computer, which makes printing faster but makes it near impossible to continue working on your computer at the same time.

Locating Print Manager on your computer is easy, as it can be found in the Control Panel. Just double-click on the Control Panel in your start menu's program group, open the printers folder and check the box that is located next to the 'Use Print Manager' heading. To change the options for Print Manager, double click the icon for "Print Manager" and make your selections under the various options tabs. Changing the priority of your printer's CPU usage can change the speed of your print jobs, optimising the performance of your printer with only a few clicks.


Ryan Oylear has been an expert in the business industry for over twenty five years. He now specialises in helping startup small businesses discover ways to save money and to stretch their budgets. Ryan Oylear wants to share the benefits of purchasing ink and toner cartridges printers, which can save money for your business in the long run.