What are the different Spool statuses and their significance?

This article answers the following queries :

• What does spool request contain ?


• Where is the spool request stored ?


• What are different Spool statuses and their significance?


• Which workprocesses will create spool requests?


• What is the difference between spool request and output request ?


• Which workprocess will create output request  or print request?

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What does spool request contain ?

Spool request contains detailed information regarding printer model, formatting to be done on the data to be output.

Where is the spool request stored ?

The spool request that is generated is stored in the Temse( temporary sequential file)

What are different Spool statuses and their significance?

Spool requests will have different statuses like

• Completed (The output request printed successfully)

• Waiting (Spool request is in waiting status and spool system has not yet processed the output request and not yet sent to the host system)

• Inprocess (The spool workprocess is in the process of formatting output request for printing)

• Printing (The host spool is in the process of printing the output request

• Problem (This indicates there are some minor errors. It means output request printed but contains some errors like incomplete character set etc)

• Error (This status indicates some serious issues such as network error. It means the requests have not printed and they remain in the spool system until they are deleted or until they reach their expiration date. After expiry date, they are deleted by the reorganisation jobs. 

• Archive (This status is set for spool requests that are sent to an archiving device. This status means that the spool request was already processed by the spool system and it is now waiting to be archived)

• Time (This status means that the user who has created the spool has mentioned some specific time for output)

• -  ( This minus status means that the spool request is not yet sent to the host system and no output request exists)

• + ( This plus status means that the spool request is being generated and it is stored in the spool system )

Which workprocesses will create spool requests? :

Spool requests will be created by dialog or background workprocesses.

Please note that spool work processes donot create spool requests

What is the difference between spool request and output request ?

Spool request contains detailed information regarding printer model, formatting to be done on the data to be output. Output request contains all the data in the format that the printer understands.

A spool workprocess formats the data specified in the spool request and generates the output request. Output request is also termed as print request.

Which workprocess will create output request ?

Output request will be created by spool workprocesses.