Easy Ways to Print Over the Network or Internet

4 Easy Ways to Remotely Print Over the Network or Internet

Remote printing doesn’t have to be hard, whether you want to print to a printer down the hall or half-way around the world. We’ll cover some simple ways you can print without being directly connected to your printer.

We’re going to focus on the easiest options here. We’re won’t cover setting up the Internet Printing Protocol (IPP) or JetDirect and allowing it through your firewall or complicated Windows networking configurations, as these are options best-suited for the IT Professional.

Get a Wireless Printer

Even if you still print, you don’t need a separate printer connected to every computer in your house. Many new printers are network printers that can connect to your network via Wi-Fi. Once connected, you install the appropriate driver software on each computer and all the computers can print to that printer over the network.

Unlike sharing a local printer with Windows, you don’t have to leave the main computer on — as long as the printer is on, you can print directly to it.

These printers only allow you to print to them over the local network, so you’ll need some other tricks if you want to print to them over the Internet.

Share a Printer on Your Local Network

Windows makes it easy to share printers between computers on your local network. This is ideal if you have local printer that connects to your computer via USB. Once you set up printer sharing, the printer will function almost like a networked printer. As long as the computer the printer is connected to is powered on, any other authorized computer on the network can print to it.

The easiest way to do this on Windows 7 or Windows 8 is with the Homegroup feature. Simply set up a Homegroup and check the Printers option to share your connected printers. Join your other computers to the Homegroup and they’ll see the networked printer appear in their list of available printers, assuming the computer sharing the printer is online.

As with standard networked printers, this only works over the local network. You can share printers between computers that aren’t on the same Homegroup, but it’s easier to just use a Homegroup.

Access Remote Printers With Google Cloud Print

Google Cloud Print is Google’s remote-printing solution. Many new printers include built-in support for Google Cloud Print. If a printer doesn’t include Cloud Print support, you can make it available via Google Cloud Print by setting up Google Cloud Print in Google Chrome.

Once a printer is configured to work with Google Cloud Print, it’s associated with your Google account. You can then remotely access the printer with your Google account credentials. You can also share one of your printers with another Google account, so you can allow other people to remotely print to your computer as easily as if you were sharing a file with them via Google Drive.

Up until recently, Google Cloud Print has been a bit of a novelty. Google Chrome includes support for Cloud Print, and you can use Cloud Print apps on iOS and Android to remotely print to Cloud Print printers. However, Google recently launched a Google Cloud Printer service for the Windows desktop. Install it and Google Cloud Print will be available in the standard print dialog, so you can remotely print to Cloud Print printers from Microsoft Office or any other desktop app.

For printing over the Internet, Google Cloud Print offers the most polished experience and easiest setup experience for average users.

Use a VPN to Access Printers on Remote Networks

If you want to access standard network printers or printers shared via Windows networking when you’re away from the local network, you can use a virtual private network, or VPN. Connect to a VPN and your computer will create a secure tunnel to the VPN server on the remote network. All your traffic will be sent over this tunnel, so your computer will behave as if it were connected to the remote network. This means that locally shared printers, as well as other network resources like Windows file shares, will be accessible.

Once your computer is connected to the VPN, the printer will be available and you can print to it just as if you were on the same local network. Many businesses networks set up VPNs so their employees can remotely connect to the business network, so you may already be able to do this with your existing VPN connection.

Setting up your own VPN is more complicated than using Google Cloud Print, but it can be done. Windows includes hidden support for setting up a VPN server. Hosting your own VPN server isn’t ideal for security — it’s easier to just use Google Cloud Print if you don’t want to worry as much about security.

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There are a wide variety of other different ways to print remotely. For example, some networked printers may be able to accept documents at an email address and automatically print all documents that arrive at that address. Some may work with Bluetooth or Apple’s AirPrint to accept print jobs wirelessly.

4 Easy Ways to Remotely Print Over the Network or Internet

Enable Native Google Cloud Printing and Printer Sharing in Windows

How to Enable Native Google Cloud Printing and Printer Sharing in Windows

We’ve shown you how to enabled Cloud Print on your mobile devices and even use third-party tools to add it to Windows. Read on as we show you how to add Cloud Print functionality as a Windows service and native printing from any of your Windows computers.

Why Do I Want to Do This?

Cloud Print is a fantastic way to print from any internet-connected location to any Cloud-enabled printer; it completely breaks the paradigm of forcing you to transfer a file to a computer on the network directly attached to the printer.

In addition to all the benefits you get from Cloud Printing (which we delve deeper into here), thanks to the new releases from Google you now have two awesome ways to access Cloud Print.

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First, Google Cloud Print Driver adds in print-anywhere functionality to Windows without 1) having to print from Chrome or  2) relying on a third party helper app. Because the new Cloud Print Driver integrates Cloud Print right into Windows like a regular native printer, any application that can access the system printers can access your Cloud Print printers.

Second, Google Cloud Print Service links all your existing printers directly to Google Cloud Print. Instead of the relying on a Chrome extension to serve as a print server, you can integrate your printers and Cloud Print at the service level.

What Do I Need?

For this tutorial, you’ll need a few things:

• A Google Account
• A Windows Computer
• A Copy of Google Chrome
• A copy of the Google Cloud Print Service (if you want to link your existing printers to your Cloud Print network)
• A copy of the Google Cloud Print Driver (if you want to add Google Cloud Print to your list of default Windows printers)

Now, to avoid any frustration, let’s make that distinction very clear: If you want to integrate your existing printers into your Google Cloud Print account, you install the Service (which we’ll cover in the first portion of the tutorial), but if you want to install Google Cloud Printer as a printer on your computer (so you can print to your existing Cloud Print printers) you need to install the Driver. Service to link printers to the cloud; Driver to add Google Cloud Print to your default printer list.

Installing Google Cloud Print Service

Although setting up Google Cloud Print Service isn’t a huge pain, it’s pretty non-intuitive for a Google product. In order to install the Print Service, you need to first visit the Google Cloud Print Service download page here. Even though it will refuse to let you download the application if you’re not using Chrome, you can actually download it directly with any browser. The catch comes later, when the installation app actually calls on Google Chrome (now, whether it actually needs any of the Chrome components to function or Google just wants you to use their browser, is unclear).

Once you’ve downloaded the initial installation application by clicking “Accept and Install”, you’ll be prompted by the Windows UAC to authorize the installation. Confirm the installation and let it finish installing.

Here’s the part of the installation process where it gets a tad non-intuitive. It looks like you’re done, but all we just did was install the Print Service; we didn’t actually link it to your Google Cloud Account. In order to do so, we need to actually launch the service. Click on the Start Menu and look for the freshly installed Google Cloud Print Service:

When you launch the application, you’ll be greeted with a simple interface like so:

The password you enter here is the user password for your Windows account, not your Google password. Again, with emphasis, enter your local Windows username and password. Enter your password and click “Register”. This is the point in the installation where the installer kicks you over to Google Chrome and prompts you to authorize your Google Account. Go ahead and do so:

Now, those of you who have already played around with Google Print and used the Google-Chrome-as-Printer-Server work around might pause here and say “Wait a minute, what if I’m installing this feature on a computer that already has direct access to some of the printers in my Google Print account? Won’t this make duplicates?” Yes, yes it will. Fortunately you can just bulk delete the duplicate entries in your Cloud Print control panel. It’s an annoyance, but it takes about 10 seconds to fix.

At this point, you’ve successfully linked your local printers to the Google Cloud Print network. As long as this Windows machine stays on to function as a print server, you’ll have access to the printers.

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Installing Google Cloud Print Driver

In the previous section, we covered how to link your Windows printers to Google Cloud Print. This section covers the installation of the Print Driver which links Cloud Printers to Windows via the addition of a “Google Cloud Printer” in the native printer list.

Fortunately, the process of adding Google Cloud Printer to your computer (as opposed to adding to Cloud Printer via the Cloud Print Service) is a snap and quite intuitive. All you need to do is to visit the Cloud Print Driver page, accept the EULA, and download the installation app. Run the app, authorize the installation, and Google Cloud Printer will appear immediately in your list of native printers as seen in the screenshots above and below.

Now, unlike the Cloud Print Service that calls on Chrome during the installation process and then finishes installing itself as a full Windows service, the Google Cloud Printer continues to rely on Google Chrome. When you actually print to the Google Cloud Printer, it will pop up a little Chrome window which will either prompt you to login to your Google Account or display a list of the Cloud Print printers accessible to the currently logged in Google Account like so:

Once you select the printer you want, you’ll be offered additional print options (partially displayed below):

Hit print, and by the magic of Google Cloud Print your document is shuttled from your Windows PC to the Cloud Printer you’ve selected.

How to Enable Native Google Cloud Printing and Printer Sharing in Windows

GREAT HOME Printer

In the Universe of Printers, One Worth Talking About

The Hewlett-Packard Pro P1606dn is 15 inches wide, weighs 15 pounds and goes to sleep when you are not printing. And when you are, it has a mode that is slower but quieter than normal.

Say what you want about the evil of printer companies.

“Why, the ink costs more than the printer!” Yes, we know. “They give away the razor, and sell you expensive blades!” Correct. “They say we have to use their own brand of ink! That’s just to stop us from using other companies’ cheaper ink!” Bingo.

But that’s inkjet printers.

In the black-and-white, personal laser-printer realm, I’ve been pleasantly surprised. The one I bought in 2003, an H.P. LaserJet 1300, was cheap, compact and networkable; it served me flawlessly for a decade.

A couple of months ago, it finally gave up the ghost — or, rather, started printing lighter and lighter pages, even with fresh cartridges. I considered getting it repaired, but when I saw that I could get a much faster, much better, brand-new laser printer for around $100, I decided to leap into the future. ($100. Man. My first laser printer was an NEC SilentWriter for which a buddy and I paid $6,000 in the late ’80s.)

Now, I generally don’t review printers. The reason is simple: I’m a one-man operation, and there are hundreds of printer models to review. I’d lose that war fast.

The one I actually bought, though, deserves a special mention. It’s the Hewlett-Packard Pro P1606dn ($150 online). Fortunately, whoever names these things doesn’t design them. This is one rockin’ printer.

First, it’s shiny, black and tiny: 15 inches wide, 11 deep, 9.5 inches tall. We keep it on a bookshelf, believe it or not. It weighs 15 pounds, which is very light. (My old SilentWriter, by contrast, was roughly the size and weight of a Volkswagen Beetle.)

Keeping it in the main living area of the house is also made possible by this printer’s environmentally thoughtful narcolepsy; it goes to completely silent sleep when you’re not printing. And even when it is, it has a Quiet mode that’s slower but quieter than normal.

Second, the printer practically sets itself up. The Smart Install feature means that the drivers and software you need are built into the printer; you don’t need a CD or a download. Any computer you connect to it with a USB cable instantly grabs the software it needs, all by itself. (Smart Install is for Windows. Our Macs didn’t need it; OS X comes with the driver already built in.)

The first page pops out only a few seconds after you click Print, and then the printer absolutely blazes: 25 pages a minute. It makes inkjet printers look positively sluglike.

The printouts look fantastic, crisp and black. The input and output trays hold 150 sheets; there’s also a “priority” slot for envelopes, label sheets and other special paper. You get about 2,000 pages from each $78 cartridge, which isn’t bad.

But for my family, the P1606dn’s star features are these:

* Built-in networking. Plug an Ethernet cable into the back, and suddenly this thing is on the network, so any Mac or PC in the house can send printouts to it wirelessly. No setup.

* AirPrint. You can send printouts to this printer from an iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch — or at least any app with a Print command — without any setup. For example, we routinely use the phone as a scanner. (We use a scanner-like app, JotNot, to capture page images, then print them instantly and wirelessly on the HP. Double sided.)

* Double-sided printing. I’ve never seen duplex printing on a personal laser printer before, but it’s awesome. It saves a ton of paper and serves manuscripts and musical scores especially well. It’s amazing to watch. Each page spits out of the printer, then gets sucked back in, and finally slides out a second time, now printed on both sides.

Here’s what you sacrifice. This printer doesn’t have a screen or even a status panel — only three indicator lights — but I’ve never once missed them. No memory-card slot, either. And, like most printers, this one comes without any cables. You’re expected to supply your own USB or Ethernet cable.

Incredibly fast, superb quality, dirt cheap; no wonder this printer gets rave reviews on Amazon. Here’s one more. If you’re looking for a home laser printer, you’ll fall in love with this one — whatever it’s called.

In the Universe of Printers, One Worth Talking About - NYTimes.com

Google Cloud Print

I cannot recommend Google Cloud Print highly enough.  The only requirement is a Google account and Google Chrome on the computer connected to a printer to which you want to print.

How (and Why) to Get Started with Google Cloud Print

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if you could print from any of your devices (desktops, laptops, phones, tablets) to any of your printers, at any time? Read on as we explore Google Cloud Print, a fantastic way to enable printing on all your devices big and small.

Why Do I Want to Do This?

The best workflow and computer tweaks make your life easier, and that’s certainly true of setting up Google Cloud Print. Once you have learned about the system and configured it, you’ll be able to print to all your devices without a bunch of annoying go-between steps.

In other words, there will be no more “OK, I looking at this file on my Android phone, so I’ll save it to my phone, copy it to my Dropbox account, go over to the computer and get it from Dropbox, and then send it to my home printer.” There will be only “OK, I’ll print this.” and the Cloud Print system will delivery it right from your phone (wherever you are in the world) to the printer you’ve selected.

Easy printing from a desktop computer has long been a cinch; Google Cloud Print brings that same ease of one-click printing to everything else in your stable of electronic gadgets.

What Do I Need?

To use Google Cloud Print you need three primary things:

• A Google Account.
• A Cloud Print-enabled printer or computer capable of running Chrome connected to the printer.
• A device capable of printing to Cloud Print (e.g. an Android phone, iOS device, laptop, or tablet).

The glue that binds everything together is your Google Account and the Cloud Print servers. What is bound together depends on your personal setup. If you have a newer Cloud Print-enabled printer (check the list here) you won’t need a computer to act as a print server.

If you don’t have a Cloud Print-enabled printer, you’ll need a computer that is on and connected to your printer during the times you want to print (if you have an always on home-server, now would be an idea time to configure it to print to your home printer so you can use it instead of your desktop).

The final component is the device you wish to configure to print to your Cloud Printer. This device (or devices) will most likely be mobile because, after all, your permanently located devices like home office computers and such are likely already configured to print to your home computer via traditional methods.

How Do I Configure My Printers?

The first order of business is getting the actual physical printer online and part of your Cloud Print network.

If you have a Cloud Print-enabled printer, the best way to configure it is to refer to the manual–look for a Getting Started with Cloud Print section or the like. Setup should be as simple as plugging in a few items in the configuration panel of your printer.

If you don’t have a Cloud Print-enabled printer, there are a few extra (although trivial) steps to complete. In order to complete them, you will need to be on a computer that is 1) on when you want to print 2) has Google Chrome installed and 3) can print to the printer you wish to print to remotely.

Note: Before we proceed, we highly recommend going into the Devices and Printers menu on your machine and removing any old printers.

We, for example, had several phantom printers installed that were no longer in service in our home office. If you don’t remove them, they’ll end up being listed in your Google Cloud Print account as useless clutter.

First, you need to enable Google Cloud Print in your installation of Google Chrome. This will allow Chrome to act as a print server for the Cloud Print service and send documents to the printers accessible to the computer on which it is enabled.

Click on the Menu button in the upper right hand corner of the Chrome interface and select Settings. Within the Settings menu scroll down to the bottom and click on “Show Advanced Options”. When the advanced options are displayed, scroll down until you see “Google Cloud Print”.

If you are not signed into your Google Account within Chrome, the button will say “Sign in to Google Cloud Print”. If you are already signed in (e.g. you’ve enabled syncing for this installation of Chrome), the button will read “Add printers”. Sign in if necessary and then click “Add printers”; in addition, take a moment to ensure that “Continue running background apps…” under the System section is checked to ensure your Cloud Printer server stays active even when you’re not actively using Chrome.

After you hit “Add printers”, you will be presented with a confirmation screen that indicates you don’t actually have to do this step to use the Cloud Printer service. That’s true, you could use Cloud Printer strictly to print PDF files to your Google Account–that’s an awesome feature, but it’s not our goal today. Our goal is to get physical printouts from our printer.

Go ahead and click the blue “Add printer(s)” button to continue. This step automatically adds all the printers available on your computer to your Google Cloud Print account. It’s important to only do this on one computer that can access your printers–otherwise you’ll end up with a mess of duplicate printers listed in your account.

Once you have added all your printers you can view/manage them by visiting this link:

There are two things worth noting in the screenshot above. First, the “Share” button and second, the “Owned by me” flags beside all the printers we just added into the system. Cloud Print makes it as easy to share printers with people as it is to share documents in Google Docs. Rather than set up some sort of complex networking arrangement, you can simply give your friend’s Google Cloud Print account permission to use your printer. Printers people share with you will appear here but will be flagged “Owned by [Friend's Name Here]“.

How Do I Print to My Cloud Printers?

Now that your printers are Cloud-enabled, we have to attend to the most important business of all: getting documents from your devices to your printers.

If you’re printing from a Google App of any sort, life couldn’t be easier. Whether you’re using the Google Drive app on Android, or Gmail on iOS, or just logged into the web interface for Google Docs from a remote computer, you can print directly from Google Apps into the Google Cloud Printer service. For example, here are some screen shots of me sending my daughter’s chore check list from Google Drive, via my Android phone, to the printer upstairs–no special add on software or tweaks required:

All I had to do was open the document, click the menu in the upper right corner, select “Print”, select the printer, and then review the print options before clicking “Print”. By the time I walked up the stairs to retrieve the printout, it was already sitting in the tray.

When you’re not printing directly from a Google App or an instance of Google Chrome with account syncing turned on, you’ll need a helper application of some sort. There are helper applications available for Android, iOS, Windows, and OS X that extend the print functionality beyond Chrome/Google Apps to any print-capable application on the system (or serve as a sort of mobile print platform where you can open documents from your device and send them to the Cloud Printer).

You can check out the list of apps in the Google Cloud Print Supported Apps section and grab the appropriate app for your system. If you’re curious how these apps work, you can check out our tutorial demonstrating how to use the third party Cloud Print app on Android here. Update: There is now an official Google Cloud Print application for Android.

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Once you’ve completed the simple configuration process, the potential of the Cloud Print system is vast. You can share a printer with a friend or colleague who routinely needs to send you physical documents, you can set up a shared photo printer at your parents’ house so you and your siblings can automatically send photos of the grandchildren, and, at minimum, you’ll never have to dink around with trying to get a file off your mobile device and onto your remote printer again.

How (and Why) to Get Started with Google Cloud Print

Print to PDF in Windows

How to Print to PDF in Windows: 4 Tips and Tricks

Unlike most other operating systems, Windows still doesn’t include first-class support for printing to PDFs. However, PDF printing is still fairly simple — you can quickly install a free PDF printer or use the support included in various programs.

We’ll cover ways you can easily print to PDF, whether you’re on a home computer where you can install a PDF printer or you’re using a locked-down computer you can’t install any software on.

Install a PDF Printer

Windows doesn’t include a built-in PDF printer, but it does include one that prints to Microsoft’s XPS file format.  You can install a PDF printer to print to PDF from any application in Windows with a print dialog. The PDF printer will add a new virtual printer to your list of installed printers. When you print any document to the PDF printer, it will create a new PDF file on your computer instead of printing it to a physical document.

You can choose from a variety of free PDF printers available online, but we’ve had good luck with the free CutePDF Writer. Just download it, run the installer, and you’re done. Just be sure to uncheck the terrible Ask Toolbar and other bloatware during installation.

On Windows 8, PDF printers you install will appear both in the classic desktop Print dialog and the Modern printer list.

Use a Program’s Built-in PDF Export

Some applications have added their own PDF-export support because Windows doesn’t have it natively. In many programs, you can print to PDF without installing a PDF printer at all.

• Google Chrome: Click the menu and and click Print. Click the Change button under Destination and select Save as PDF.
• Microsoft Office: Open the menu, select Export, and select Create PDF/XPS Document.
• LibreOffice: Open the File menu and select Export as PDF.

You can generally create a PDF file from the print dialog or with an “Export to PDF” or “Save to PDF” option if the program supports it. To print to PDF from anywhere, install a PDF printer.

Print to XPS and Convert to PDF

Perhaps you’re using a computer that you can’t install any software on, but you want to print to PDF from Internet Explorer or another program without integrated PDF support. If you’re using Windows Vista, 7, or 8, you can print to the Microsoft XPS Document Writer printer to create an XPS file from the document.

You’ll have the document in the form of an XPS file you can take with you. You can convert it to a PDF file later with one of the following methods:

• Use an Online Converter: If the document isn’t particularly important or sensitive, you can use a free web-based converter like XPS2PDF to create a PDF document from your XPS file.
• Print the XPS File to PDF: Bring the XPS file to a computer with a PDF printer installed. Open the XPS file in Microsoft’s XPS Viewer, click File -> Print, and print the XPS file to your virtual PDF printer. This will create a PDF file with the same contents as your XPS file.

Quickly Create PDFs from Websites

If you’re using a computer without a PDF printer and you just want to print a web page to a PDF file you can take with you, you don’t need to mess around with any conversion process. Just use a web-based tool like Web2PDF, plug the web page’s address in, and it will create a PDF file for you. Tools like this one are intended for public web pages, not private ones like online-shopping receipts.

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This would all be easier if Windows included a PDF printer, but Microsoft still wants to push their own XPS format for now.

How to Print to PDF in Windows: 4 Tips and Tricks