Windows Printing: Keep Printed Documents

Keep printed documents is a Windows feature that makes the Windows’ print queue keep spool files instead of deleting them after the document has been printed. This allows users or administrators to later reprint or view the spool file.

How do I view a spool file?

The Keep printed documents setting works well when dealing with a small number of printers and users, as you would see at small office or home, however this feature does not scale as well as many system administrators would like. There is no way to distinguish between the printed documents as they are identified by a spool number that ins’t terribly useful. This is where print management software such as PaperCut can help to scale this type of solution correctly.

Way back in version 13, PaperCut introduced the Print Archiving feature which allows approved administrators to interactively view already printed documents and reprint if needed.

Print Archiving keeps all the print information such as time and date, user, printer, document name, print language as well as grayscale & duplex settings. This level of documentation allows the administrator to quickly find the requested printed document and securely reprint or view.

For more information on Print Archiving, head over to our Print Archiving section of the manual..