Printer Spooler
... A print spooler is a computer program that sequences print jobs by temporarily storing them and submitting each job to the printer when the printer is able to process it. The spooler provides several important functions or services to the computer and the user. ... There are numerous benefits to using the printer spooler; one including the capability of the user submitting several jobs for processing, even though it has not completed all of the previous jobs. Prior to the creation of the spooler the user would be forced to send a job to the printer, wait on that job to complete printing, and then they would be able to send the next job to the printer. ... For instance, if the user submitted a job to the printer five minutes ago, but the job did not printer, the user can query the queue to find out if and when the job will be printed.