Alan Frayer, CNE, CNI, CIW CI, Net+, MCP

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You may never need to explain some of the complexities of NetWare printing to the computer illiterate. If the subject will never come up around your conference table, dinner table, or picnic table, consider yourself fortunate.

Alas, I can't consider myself fortunate.

It is hard enough to explain basic DOS to some people. I had to explain how to print WordPerfect 5.1 and Lotus 1-2-3 2.3 documents to different printers across a NetWare 3.11 network. I pondered the CAPTURE statement, and decided these secretaries needed a simpler approach. Thus was born "Frayer's Cat & Mouse Analogy of NetWare Printing."

FRAYER'S CAT & MOUSE ANALOGY OF NETWARE PRINTING

Imagine you have a really smart mouse, which you can train to perform some simple jobs by manipulating levers with numbers on them. In a simple, non-networked printing situation, 1-2-3 would teach the mouse how to use the numbered levers, then send him out the mouse hole to a waiting device, where he would happily work his numbered levers.

Now we introduce NetWare printing, in the form of two more devices, one that has alphabetical levers, and one that has Braille. 1-2-3 doesn't notice that NetWare exists for printing purposes, and continues to teach the mouse how to work the levers, however we can tell 1-2-3 to teach the mouse with numbered levers, alphabetical levers, or levers in Braille (I said he was a smart mouse). 1-2-3 teaches the mouse and sends him out the mouse hole, where he runs for the nearest device and starts to move levers. Hopefully that device offers levers in the same language 1-2-3 taught him, otherwise the job will be done wrong.

We don't want to screw up the job, though, so we place a cat outside the mouse hole. We teach this cat to CAPTURE the mouse as he comes out the hole, and place him in the desired device, so the mouse can work the properly coded levers. The system now works: 1-2-3 tells the mouse how to do the job, and the cat shows the mouse where to do the job.

Enter WordPerfect 5.1. WP is really smart. It can teach the mouse how to work the levers AND where to find the device! The mouse takes his new instructions and heads out the hole... only to find the cat. If we told the cat the same device that WP told the mouse, the cat CAPTURES the mouse and places him in the proper device. If we forgot to tell the cat because we knew WP was telling the mouse, the cat would intercept the mouse and take him to the wrong device, and we'd get a botched job.

If we only used WordPerfect, we wouldn't need the cat. Since we also use 1-2-3, we must include the cat in our printing plans. We must remember to tell the cat where to send the mouse, whether we use WP or 1-2-3, otherwise we must remember to remove the cat (ENDCAP) when using WordPerfect.

The mouse represents your data, as instructed by the printer drivers in 1-2-3 and WordPerfect, and the cat represents the CAPTURE command. Prior to this analogy, users had trouble understanding why they needed to choose a printer within the application as well as using the CAPTURE command outside the program. Worse, they had a tendency to tell WordPerfect to use one printer, without remembering that the data is still being captured to another printer by Novell.

It is hoped that this analogy might make it easier for you to understand how CAPTURE works with programs, or for you to explain to other users who are lost in the complexities of NetWare printing.

Copyright (c) 1992 by Alan Frayer
All Rights Reserved

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