How to cancel a scheduled print job

So your printer is busy penning pages you don’t need. Time to tell it to stop. First, take a look at the buttons on your printer. It’s possible that it has a Cancel or Stop button, like this Canon model. If it does have one of these buttons, we recommend pressing it because the effect will be quicker than relying on Windows’ commands to halt the print job. If your printer lacks this useful key read on.

There are a few ways to cancel print jobs in Windows but all require you to act fast. Pause too long for thought and the entire print job could already be transferred to the printer, in which case the only way to stop it will be to hit the printer’s Cancel or Stop button or turn it off. Assuming you are quick off the mark, either click the printer driver’s own Cancel Printing button (as in our screenshot) or double-click the printer icon in the Notification Area to bring up the printer properties dialogue box.

The printer properties dialogue box can be used to either cancel a single print job or all pending print jobs. To cancel a single print job, right-click its entry in the list under the Document Name heading and choose Cancel from the pop-up menu. Alternatively, to cancel all jobs at once, click the Printer menu and select Cancel All Documents. When asked whether you’re sure, click Yes.