The message means exactly what it says, but in geek-speak. :-) Here's a
translation:
There is a program called the Print Spooler service. It's part of Windows,
and it's supposed to start automatically whenever you start Windows. Most of
the time it just sits in memory, doing nothing. When you click the Print
command in any program, the bits that need to be sent to the printer are
first sent to the Print Spooler program, which saves them in a temporary
file on disk and then sends them a few at a time to the printer (which is
comparatively slow and doesn't have enough memory of its own for a big
document).
The message is saying that the service isn't running. There could be many
reasons for that, and some of them are fairly serious while others are just
temporary.
The first thing to try is to reboot the computer and print the document
again. If the service started properly on the reboot, then the problem is
solved.
If that doesn't work, do this:
- Right-click the My Computer icon and choose Manage. In the Computer
Management window, double-click "Services and Applications" and then
single-click "Services" under that.
- Scroll the right-hand window to find Print Spooler. Right-click it and
choose Start.
If it starts (and a message box will tell you the start was successful),
then print the document. If it doesn't start, a message box may tell you why
it failed. If that "reason" isn't helpful, then in the Computer Management
dialog double-click the Event Viewer icon. Click the System item under that,
and look for an error item at the proper time; double-click it to read its
description. From there, you can Google the description or post a question
in a Windows newsgroup.
As a temporary workaround, you can tell Windows to bypass the spooler. Go to
Start menu Settings Printers & Faxes. Right-click your printer's icon
and choose Properties. In the Properties dialog, click the Advanced tab.
Choose the option button for "Print directly to the printer" and click OK.
The drawback of this is that you won't be able to edit in Word while the
document is printing.
--
Regards,
Jay Freedman
Microsoft Word MVP FAQ:
http://word.mvps.org
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