Sorry for the delay -- I actually fixed the problem by getting a new
printer! I'm piosting this to pay you the $15, plus a $5 tip for your
patience!

prpro...

You are a man of your word, and I thank you. I will here
reproduce your question and the answer I gave, for the sake
of future readers:

QUESTION

When I try to spool my printing when I am offline (so that,
when I am online with my printer, the docs will print out),
my XP system will not let me do it. On the Advanced tab under
printer properties, I do have 'Print directly to printer' 
unchecked, which is supposed to solve the problem -- but it
doesn't.


ANSWER

Okay, from what I've been reading, I'm getting the impression
that when you send documents to the spooler while disconnected
from the printer, the spooler tries to send them to the printer,
and, since it's not there, it may not be saving them properly.

You could check by disconnecting from the printer, sending some
documents to the print spooler, and then checking the queue by
going to Start -> Settings -> Printers, and clicking on your 
printer. This should show you the queue and whether the documents
you printed are contained therein, and for how long. They may
be discarded after a certain amount of time if no printer is
found.

Even if they do show up in the queue, there are some settings
which would seem to offer a greater chance of success. Please
try the following:

Most importantly, go to the queue (as above) before doing any 
printing (offline), and select, from the top toolbar, Printer
-> Use printer offline.

Now print a couple of documents 'offline'. Then turn off the
computer, plug in the printer (on) and reboot. Go to the 
queue page and uncheck 'Use printer offline'. It should 
start printing what's in the queue right away.


If that works, the following settings are unnecessary:

Go to the printer properties page, advanced tab, and select
both 'Print spooled documents first' and 'Keep printed documents'.
The latter will guarantee that the documents are saved even if
they are sent to the queue and discarded due to the fact that
no printer can be found. If you were successful with the first
technique of using the printer offline, you may not want to
use this last option, since it will save every document you
print on your hard drive, making it accessible for future
printing, and this can take up a great deal of space.


Thanks again for remembering me. I assume that means you're
once again happily at home.  : )

sublime1-ga

Great job, as usual!  Thanks!