How to stop a document printing

If you want to cancel printing a document, depending on the printer and the version of Windows in use, things may be very straightforward. Here, for example, Windows has discovered that our Canon i455 printer is switched off and has displayed a dialogue box that allows us to click the Cancel Printing button or choose Display Print Queue instead. Either of these lets us stop the current print job and then make whatever changes we need to before trying to print it out again. Some printers, such as this one, will display a similar dialogue box whether XP, Vista or Windows 7 is installed.

If the Windows/printer software combination doesn’t display a dedicated dialogue box like this, it’s still easy enough to cancel or pause printing – if you know where to look. Roll the mouse pointer over the Notification Area, find the printer icon there and double-click it (in Windows 7 you may need to click the Show hidden icons button first to see the printer icon). This will open a dialogue box that displays any currently active print jobs. Here we’re using Vista to right-click on one of the entries in the list there before choosing Cancel from the menu.

Sometimes you may end up with several documents in the print queue. If that’s the case, having started printing, just double-click the printer icon in the Notification Area and then, when the dialogue box opens, click Printer and then choose Cancel All Documents from the menu. Windows will ask if you’re sure – click OK to finish. This menu is also the place to pause all documents while you do something else. Click to tick the Pause Printing option (and do the same again to remove the tick to restart printing).