I have an application that prints reports, to a network printer, that are regularly over 1000 pages long. The time it takes to produce the report is about 15 - 20 minutes.

In order to speed this up I allow the user to specify a report print parameter that will break the report into smaller chunks. That way the first section can start printing while the next ones are being enerated and so on.

If I test it here on a 1000 page report with a print size parameter of 200, it will begin printing the first the first chunk while it is producing the next chunk.

A client is also using the system. However in their case all chunks of the report are produced and sent to the printer before the first one starts printing.

Is there a reason for the difference?