System Administration Guide: Solaris Printing
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Managing Printer Groups

Print Manager has three types of printer groups:

System groups

These groups cannot be created or deleted. However you can edit the contents of these groups. By default, there are two system groups, All Printers and Favorites.

  • All Printers

    This group contains all the printer queues that are currently known to the system. All other groups are views of the All Printers group.

    To delete a printer queue permanently, you must delete it from the All Printers group. Deleting a printer queue from another group only removes the queue from that group. The printer queue remains on the system until it is deleted from the All Printers group.

  • Favorites

    You can use the Favorites group to store the printer queues that you use most often.


    Note - When you print a document from an application, only the printer queues in your Favorites group are shown in the application's Print dialog. If your Favorites group is empty, the printer queues in the All Printers group are shown in the application's Print dialog instead.


Regular groups

These groups are named groups to which you can copy or drag any printer that is known to the system. For example, you might have a Home or an Office printer group.

Search groups

These groups contain the results of searches that you perform. The contents of search groups are updated dynamically. For example, when a new local printer is connected, or a new network printer is discovered, its printer queue is automatically added to all of the search groups that have matching search criteria.

How to Create a New Printer Group

  1. From the Group menu, choose New Group.

    A new group with the default name, Untitled N, is created in the Group pane of the Print Manager window.

    • To create a new printer group by using a keyboard shortcut, press Ctrl+N
  2. Type a name for the new group.
  3. Press Enter to save the new group name. Press Esc to revert to the original name.

How to Create a New Search Group

  1. From the Group menu, choose New Search Group.

    A new search group with the default name, Untitled N, is created in the Group pane.

    The New Search Group dialog opens.

    • To create a new search group by using the toolbar, click the New Search Group button.
    • To create a new search group by using a keyboard shortcut, press Ctrl+S.
  2. In the Search Group Properties dialog:
    1. Enter the name of the search group in the Group name field.
    2. Choose whether you want to include printer queues that match any or all of your search terms by using the Show printers that match buttons.
    3. From the drop-down menus, select how you would like to search.
    4. To enter any additional search terms, click the Add ( +) button.

      If additional search terms are provided, the Remove (-) button is visible. To delete an entire search term (row), click the Remove (-) button.

    5. To create the new search group, click OK.

How to Create a New Search Group by Using a Queue Pane Filter

  1. In the Group pane, select a group that includes all of the printer queues you want to include in the new search group.
  2. Filter the Queue pane view by using the filter box that is located in the toolbar.
  3. From the filter box drop-down menu, select Save Filter as Search Group.

    A new search group with the default name you entered is created in the Group pane.

How to View or Change an Existing Search Group's Properties

  1. In the Group pane, select the search group.
  2. From the Group menu, choose Properties.

    The Search Group Properties dialog is displayed, allowing you to view or change the properties of the search group.

    • To change the name of search group, enter the new name in the Group name field.
    • Make any necessary changes to the search criteria.
    • To provide additional search terms, click the Add (+) button.

      If you provided additional search terms that you want to delete, the Remove (-) button is visible. To delete a search term (entire row), click the Remove (-) button.

  3. To save your changes, click OK.

How to Delete a Printer Group

You can delete printer groups and search groups that you have created.


Note - You cannot delete the All Printers or the Favorites groups.


  1. In the Group pane, select the group that you want to delete.
  2. From the Edit menu, choose Delete.
    • To delete a group by using the toolbar option, click the Delete button.
    • To delete a group by using a keyboard shortcut, press the Delete key.
  3. To permanently delete the group, click Yes in the confirmation alert that is displayed. To cancel, click No.
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