What is Spool?

Spooling (Simultaneous Peripheral Operations On-Line) is a process in which data is temporarily held to be used and executed by a device, program or system. Spooling is typically used with devices that operate at different data processing rates or in different time domains. It creates a queue of jobs or data that a device or system can process when it is ready. A common example is print spooling, where documents are sent to a print queue, allowing the user to continue working without waiting for the printer to finish.