How to cancel printing on a printer: common methods. How to cancel printing or pause the queue so that the printer does not print How to cancel printing in Excel

Accounting and taxes 28.11.2020
Accounting and taxes

Sometimes it happens that when working with some documents, the user accidentally sends them to the print queue. For such cases, there are different solutions to the problem of how to cancel printing. Let's look at them now.

Option 1

To cancel the document print queue, you need to open the menu called “Devices and Printers”. Then in the devices you should select your printer based on the markings or model name. Next, you need to open the menu of the printer to which the documents were sent to the print queue. Here you can, depending on the specific printer model, either stop printing before it starts, or interrupt it while the document is printing. In the second case, you will have to wait until the current sheet is printed.

Option 2

If you do not know how to cancel printing a document on a network printer, then study the following procedure. First of all, you need to make sure that the settings of this printer are correct. To do this, select its model in the devices and, using the method described above, remove the document from the print queue. But, in in this case, sometimes crashes occur because network printers are often used by many computers.

Option 3

Often installed on printing devices software, may have a special utility that runs automatically when the printer is running. You can also use it to make any changes to the print queue or delete it completely. Typically, such utilities have access to launch from the tray, located in the lower right corner of the taskbar. Left-click on its icon and select “Print Queue”.

Option 4

If, using the methods described above, how to cancel printing on a printer, it was not possible to cancel the print queue via a computer, you should find the “Stop” button on the printer and press it. After this, you need to reboot the system and try to clear the list again. Or, as a last resort, you need to remove the sheets of paper from the feeder, or turn off the power to the printer.

Many novice users of office equipment often look for answers to the question of how to cancel printing on a printer and how to clear the printer’s print queue. You can solve the problem of canceling the printing process very simply - to do this, find the “Cancel” or “Stop” button and click on it. If it is not there, then simply take and pull out all the paper with which you filled the special tray. Alternatively, you can simply restart both your PC and printer. Another solution to this problem is to use an option such as clearing the print queue.

  • So, to answer the question of how to stop printing on a printer, first open the section called “Hardware and Sound” through the “Start” menu. Having gone into it, find a submenu with devices and printers there, then click on it.
  • Find the problematic device in the list of presented devices and right-click on it, then select “View print queues.”
  • In the new window, select the menu called “Printer” and click on the item that involves clearing the print queue. After this action, all documents from the print queue in the printer will have to be deleted, including those that have already been printed.

Second way

If the question of how to cancel printer printing is still relevant for you, then use rebooting the system process that is responsible for printing in the OS installed on your computer/laptop.

  • To clear the document print queue in this way, press the Win+R key combination to open a window designed for entering all kinds of system commands.
  • Enter the command “services.msc” in the only field of this line and press Enter or simply “OK”.
  • In the new window, among the large list of services, find the one called Print Manager. Once you find it, click on “Restart service”.

This approach to solving the problem as a whole should help remove printable documents that are in the queue.

What should I do if the print queue is not cleared?

If the print queue is not cleared, then most likely the cause of the problem is that the documents are blocked by the device driver or operating system. Try clearing them with a normal reboot of both devices, i.e. and PCs and office equipment.

If this does not help, then go to the “Printers” folder at “C:\windows\system32\spool\” and delete all its contents manually or use the following recommendation. But keep in mind that all deleted information about the print queue will be irretrievably lost - this must be taken into account when working in an office where several printers are connected to one PC.

Force cleanup via command line

To force clear the print queue using the command line, first run it as an administrator. Then enter the command “net stop spooler”, which is used to stop the service responsible for printing documents.

Then write one by one

  • "del %systemroot%\system32\spool\printers\*.shd /F /S /Q"
  • "del %systemroot%\system32\spool\printers\*.spl /F /S /Q"

These two commands are designed to remove all files with the extension .snd and .spl as well as the folder called “Printers”.
At the end you should enter the system command “net start spooler”. Thanks to it, the print service will be restarted in its previous mode of operation.

But in order not to enter all these commands one by one into a line specially designed for them, it is better to create a BAT file. To do this you will need to open any text editor with a minimal set of functions, for example, the usual “Notepad” and immediately save the file, setting the BAT extension for it. Then enter all the above commands into it line by line and save again. To remove the print queue, simply run this file by double-clicking the left mouse button. The process of clearing the print queue using this BAT file will take you only a matter of time.

But if this script, which allows you to clear the print queue, suddenly does not work, then you need to check the presence of the “...spool\Printers” directory in the device settings. To do this, find the required office equipment in the “Devices and Printers” section and open its properties. There, go to the tab with additional parameters and pay attention to the path. If the path is specified differently, then in the script you will have to correct it by editing the BAT file - to do this, open it using the same Notepad.

Thus, there are several solutions to cancel printing on a printer and clear its queue. effective ways. In the future, try not to overload your device. big amount tasks, otherwise you will again face the problem of canceling printing.

Let's imagine the following situation: You “send” some document to the printer, but it does not want to print. Sound familiar? This article will cover all possible reasons, as well as correction methods so that the document is printed and everyone is happy.

So, first, let's look at the possible reasons for this behavior of the printer and the computer as a whole.

1) The printer may simply be turned off. Look at it and make sure that the power and standby light is on.
If not, then turn it on via the button. If even after this it does not light up, then you need to look at the connection wires (network and to the computer). Maybe they have moved away or even fallen and are not connected.

2) See if there is paper in the printer. Yes, this happens too.

3) It may be that you have several printers or the settings have been changed and the document is sent to another printer. To make sure the settings are correct, look where the document is being sent. Typically, all printing programs have a choice of where the document will be sent for printing. For example, this is what it looks like in Notepad:

If this was the problem, then so that you don’t have to worry about choosing your printer every time, you can find “Devices and Printers” in the Control Panel and in this settings set the printer that will always be used by default by right-clicking on it and selecting "Set as default"

For a number of other reasons, the computer or printer may tell you the problem directly. For example, make a sound or display a message about a paper jam, damaged cartridge, low ink, etc. Often they will also show how to solve this problem.

Have the reasons been identified? Did you solve the problem? No? Then we move on to another most common problem - this is when you sent a document to print, but it remains “hanging” in the Print Queue (the printer status window in which all documents are displayed) and either writes “Printing” or “Error”, but in reality nothing happens.
Often in this case, many users resend the same document or others for printing. They think, “What if it helps,” and then dozens of documents appear in the Queue for printing, but it still doesn’t happen.

Let's finally consider what needs to be done with clearing the print queue using methods, starting with the simple one.

1) The easiest and fastest solution is to restart either the printer or the computer. Usually it turns off the printer, but it’s a pity for the computer. You can generally turn both off and on again.
Here you should know that if you turn off the printer and then turn it on (preferably after 10 seconds), then you do not need to print the document again, because it will already be in the queue (provided that the computer was not turned off) and can be printed several times.

2) In the window, right-click on the document and select Cancel

3) Go to Start - Control Panel - Printers and Faxes
This is for Windows XP

In Windows 7 and 8, this item is called “Devices and Printers” (if View is set to Large/Small icons)

Here we find our printer and either right-click on it and select the item Clear print queue:

or open this printer and in the window Print queues select the Printer menu and the “Clear print queue” item:

Didn't work out? Then let's get serious about deleting the print queue.

4) Right-click on the My Computer icon (in the Start menu or on the Desktop) and select Manage:

Here, on the left side of the window, double-click on the “Services and Applications” item, then double-click on the “Services” item, and then on the right side look for the “Print Spooler” item. Select it, right-click and select “Stop”:

In Windows 7 it looks a little different and the items have different names, but the meaning does not change:

Now we need to go to the folder C:\WINDOWS\system32\spool\PRINTERS
and delete all files and folders from there:

If your Windows is not on drive C, then you can paste into the address bar of Explorer %systemroot%\system32\spool\printers\


Now open our “Print Spooler” service again (if closed) and right-click on it, selecting “Start” or “Run”:

All. Now the print queue will definitely be cleared.

For those who found all the steps above (in point 4) too difficult, I have prepared for you good decision- this is a file that will do everything for you - stop the service, delete files, start the service.
All you need to do is download it, unzip it (

Nowadays, we have to work a lot with papers, so almost every person has dealt with a printer. But, as with any other technology, failures and errors occur. So, when a print command is issued, nothing happens. This happens, and some users do not know how to deal with this problem.

There are many reasons, mainly the queue simply freezes. We will look at the most basic ones that the average user may encounter:

  • if you send a document for printing, but the printer is turned off at that moment, then nothing, of course, will happen. But after a while you turn on the printer and try to print again the required document. Now printing will not happen for the reason that there is already a document in the queue and while this process will fail, your new document it will remain waiting. In this case, you just need to remove unnecessary documents from the queue;
  • crashes often computer program. This is due to viruses or programs that have access to the print service. Here you won’t be able to simply clear the queue and you will have to deal with the printing service;
  • Of course, it is very important to check the functionality of the printer itself: whether there is paper in it, whether the ink has run out, and so on.

Cleaning the print queue: basic methods

Open "Task Manager"

To clear the queue, you need to go to the “Task Manager”:

  1. Next, you will see all the devices connected to your computer. You need to find the printer marked with a green checkmark (if you use several printers on your device, then you should turn to the one you are working with now in order to solve the problem). Select it by clicking the mouse and “View queue”.
  2. In this window you can view all files recently sent for printing. If you want to clear all documents at once, then simply click on “Clear Queue” in the top “Printer” section.
  3. If you need to delete certain documents, you just need to select this file in the list that opens and click on the “Del” button on your keyboard or use the mouse to open the menu and “Cancel”.

Forcefully clear the queue

Method 1

  1. Launch “Control Panel” via “Start”. In the “Large Icons” view, look for the “Administration” section.

  2. In the list that opens, find “Services”. Let's open them.

  3. Now look for “Print Manager”. Right-click on it and click “Stop”. This procedure stops this service, making printing impossible. We do not close this window; we will return to it at the end of the operation.

    Important! To perform these steps you need administrator rights. If you have several accounts on your PC, you need to log in as an administrator.

  4. Next, go to the “Printers” folder, following the following path: moving to “My Computer”, open drive C, then open the “Windows” folder, then “System32”, after which the directory we need is located in the “Spool” folder.

  5. Having entered the desired directory, you will see all the queues, just select the entire list and delete all the files we have selected.

    Remember! This action will delete all documents on all printing devices on your computer.

  6. Now we return to the open dispatcher (if you closed it, then follow the steps described above). Select “Print Manager” and start this service.

Now you can start working again.

Method 2


This operation performs all the same actions that we did in the first method of forced cleaning, only in automatic mode.

On a note! This method may not work when the Printers directory is in a different path. You can check by clicking on your printer and in Print Server Properties. Here in the last section we look at the path to our folder. If the path does not match, you will have to edit the code.

Method 3

Create an automatic cleanup file. This method is similar to the previous one.


You can leave this file on your computer and run it again if necessary. This way you don't have to go into something manually and try to delete all the documents.

The need to cancel printing on the printer usually occurs when you accidentally select the wrong document. To stop the process, you can use one of three main methods. The first method is to click the corresponding button in the utility from which the printout is made. This action is effective if it is performed immediately after the file is sent for output, while the utility is preparing it to be added to the print queue. As a rule, this is done in a dialog box that appears only for a few seconds.

The second method is to remove it from the print queue itself if the file has already been sent there. The third method involves performing certain actions on the printer. Depending on the equipment model, these actions may vary, but many devices have an emergency stop button. For these purposes, a special menu can also be used in the device settings, if there is a screen on the case. The fastest way to cancel a printout is to de-energize the device, but this method is not recommended for use.

Canceling sending a document in the program

Regardless of the application in which the file you want to print is open, a standard Windows dialog box will open before it is sent to the output device. In it you need to select a printer, specify the page range and the required number of copies. If you already understand at this stage that you do not want to print the document, just close this window. To do this, click “Cancel” at the bottom of the interface. It will close and then you can deposit necessary changes or select another file.

If you have already specified the necessary settings in this window and sent the document for output, you can use another method of canceling through the application. Preparing a document takes time. For small files it can go almost unnoticed. Large text documents with a lot of graphics and tables take longer to prepare. At this time, in office and other applications, as a rule, a small window with one button is displayed - “Cancel”. Click it to stop the process.

Important tip!

If such a window does not appear, do not wait for it to appear. Most likely, the document has already been sent to the list. To cancel the job, go to the next step.

All files sent for printing are included in a separate list. To open the list of prepared documents, click on the printer icon in the tray (lower right corner of the screen). Go to the “Printer” menu and select the “Pause” section or the next item – “Clear Queue”. After this, you can resume work through the same section of the main menu. Outdated tasks can be deleted using the context menu.

Important! If the desired tray icon is not present, open the page through the Windows Control Panel. To do this, go to the “Devices and Printers” section, select your device and click “View Queue”.

How to cancel printing on a printer with a button

Find the button that stops printing on the device body. It is recommended that you read the instructions and control elements of the device in advance before turning it on for the first time. If a key is found, press it and the current job will be paused. Printers with an LCD screen may not have such a button. Instead, a separate menu is used, which is entered by pressing the control keys next to the display. The corresponding clause can be signed.

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