MultiFinder Printing

For PostScript (LaserWriter) printing, MultiFinder provides built-in print spooling, which allows you to continue working on your Mac while the printing is handled as a background task. To use this feature, switch on "Background Printing” in the Chooser. When you execute the Print... command in any software that uses Laser Prep — some software such as PageMaker uses custom prep files and is not supported by MultiFinder’s background printing — your printing will be completed very quickly and you will not see the normal Print Status dialog box. Your file has been printed to disk, and is now sent to the printer while you continue to use your Mac.

To monitor or alter the operation of this background printing, the PrintMonitor application is used. This application is run automatically as soon as background printing begins, and you can access it by choosing its name from the Apple menu or by switching to it with whatever method you use to change between open MultiFinder applications. PrintMonitor allows you to stop any printing, or delay a print job indefinitely or until a specific time. If your Mac crashes during a background printing job, PrintMonitor will notify you when the Mac is restarted, and you can almost always restart the print job without reexecuting the Print... command in the original application.