Virtual printer. How to install a virtual printer? Free virtual printer

Since recent years there has been a rapid computerization of virtually all industries and national economy, on the scene are increasingly emerging such problems, which until now almost no one thought about. In particular, the issue of printing out documents becomes crucial.

And the problem here is often that I would like to send photos and graphics, text documents and tables from all your devices, and not just from a computer. Even better, when it can be done, even being away from your main workplace. Will help you a virtual printer.

Unlike network devices

If you have ever encountered network devices, then you already know about it. Network can be not only a printer, but also a scanner, as well as other office equipment. The whole working department can use only the scanner connected to the general network of the enterprise!

What is so unique about a virtual printer? As we have already said, the rapid pace of modern life implies the possibility of access to the device from any point not only of a particular building, but even of the city, and even of the whole world. Unfortunately, the usual local network does not help you.

As in many other cases, the pioneer in this matter was the corporation "Google". So, Google's virtual printer was the first to give users the opportunity to use their printing devices, being millions of miles away.

What it is?

In fact, it's a printer connected to the Internet. If the connection is OK, you can print documents and photos at any time of the day or night. By the way, about the pictures. You can print them not only from your computer or laptop, but even directly from your smartphone. Being in another country on vacation, you easily throw photos to print, to please them their household.

Advantages for business

Do not assume that a virtual printer can only be used by home users. Its functionality is likely to come handy to small and medium-sized business owners.

Think for yourself: you do not have to spend time and money on building a local network in the office itself, you will not need to configure naughty network devices. It will only be necessary to have an Internet connection.

In addition, this solution allows you to increase productivity, because workers can send you important documents, even while on a business trip around the city, and even in the country.

General setup information

Before you get access to all the benefits of this technology, you need to link the physical printer to its "cloud" counterpart. Consider this procedure using the example of the same technology from Google, since we have touched on this topic earlier.

Before installing a virtual printer, make sure that the actual device is connected to a specific computer or local network. Of course, you need to install all the necessary drivers in advance, since the performance of all equipment depends to a large extent on them.

The simplest way for Chromebook owners to have various modifications, because in Chrome OS the Google virtual printer is supported initially, so whatever setting it needs, it does not need. However, it is better to talk about conventional computers and operating systems, since in our country this product from the search giant has very vague prospects.

Important! The computer must have a Google Chrome browser installed, since it is the API used by this technology.

Connection procedure

Once you install the browser, you can connect the virtual printer connector. It is not difficult to do this.

• First you need to enable the physical printer.
• Start the computer, wait for the operating system to boot.
• Open the Google Chrome browser.
• Click on the icon in the form of three horizontal dashes in the upper right corner of the program, after which the settings dialog will open.
• Select "Settings".
• Then click on the link "Show advanced settings".
• Find the Google Cloud Print section. In it there is an item "Add printer", on which it is necessary to click the left mouse button.
• If you are asked to do so, you must also sign in to your Google Account, or create one (if you did not have one).

After that, you should find your printer in the list that appears, select it with the left mouse button, and then click on the button "Add device". After this, the procedure can be considered complete. Your virtual printer is ready for use. To verify this, try sending a test document to print.

Another variant

However, by this concept many of our users understand technology that allows you to "print" PDF documents. By the way, in our country until recently it was absolutely not relevant, but recently the popularity of such a file format is growing at an alarming rate. What is the reason for such "people's love"?

The fact is that PDF is a standard. The standard, which implies the absolute invariance of the document, on whatever machine and in whatever program it is opened. If you have ever encountered a spreading table in a .doc file, you yourself can understand all the splendor of this characteristic. In addition, such documents can embed a huge amount of multimedia information that does not look like a "foreign body."

Remember how ridiculous the pictures look in the same "Vord", and you will understand what is at stake.

How to create?

Strangely enough, but a free virtual printer of this class is a rarity, and therefore it takes a lot of time to choose the right program. Professional applications of this quality rarely amaze imagination at a modest cost, but in recent years, you can find a lot of virtual PDF-printers, developers who do not suffer greed.

By the way, what does the term "virtual printer" mean in this case? Word - the program is wonderful, and in recent versions, the creators from Microsoft still taught her to save documents in PDF format. The only problem is that you can not configure their default settings.

That's what a PDF printer is for. It outputs the text to a virtual "print". And at the output you get a document with professional formatting. By the way, what is a "printer" better than numerous specialized applications for creating PDF documents?

First, almost all of them are completely free. Secondly, their interface is as simple as possible, but the functionality is very high. This allows even beginners to create documents with complex formatting and precisely defined parameters. Let's look at a few such utilities.

«PDFCreator»

In fact, in its segment this program is the standard both in terms of functionality and ease of use. It is also gratifying that all the "buns" are only packed in 15 MB. The program is completely free, so it will surely appeal to domestic users. The installation process is as simple as possible: you only need to click on the "Next" button a couple of times.

Attention! Before installing a virtual printer, in the main dialog box, select the option "For advanced users". So you can prevent the installation of all kinds of "Yandex-browsers" and additional panels in the browser.

How to use the application correctly? There are no difficulties here: as soon as you install the program, in all text editors, the printer "PDFCreator" appears in the print menu. As in the case of physical printing, you can specify the basic parameters of the document (DPI, the size of fields and others).

Adobe PDF

The "Adobe" Corporation is not known only to those people who did not have any business with the computer. Only one legendary "Photoshop" is worth it! No less useful is the virtual printer JPG of its production.

The program has a huge number of various settings. There are so many of them that you can easily create a document or an image of professional quality. As you can imagine, the program is paid, so you can recommend it only to those who are really interested in first-class tools.

«Cute PDF 2.7»

In this case, money will not be required from you. In addition, the size of the program is ridiculous for our times 1.5 MB. That's only without the addition of "Ghostscript" utility will work in a reduced mode, and its size is equal to five megabytes. However, the final 6.5 MB of owners even GPRS-modem will be quite possible.

Unfortunately, the program's capabilities are also very modest. In particular, the "printing" itself occurs immediately, without the appearance of any dialog boxes of settings. In defense of the utility, it can only be said that it provides excellent compatibility with all currently existing PDF standards.

«DoPDF 6.0»

This free virtual printer features an excellent balance of functionality and simplicity. It's no joke - the whole package for installation takes a miserable 1.5 MB, and without any additional elements! In this volume, there is an excellent application that allows you to create beautiful, high-quality and standardized documents.

Before setting up a virtual printer, you should familiarize yourself with its basic capabilities. In particular (as we have already mentioned), you can adjust the size of the fields, change DPI pages, set certain standards for the PDF format itself.

Important note

Whichever "virtual printer" program you use, you need to know something important. Even in the FAQ of the most popular (and paid to the same) software products, there are very few distinct technical specifications for a specific PDF standard and its compatibility, so the relevant information is often found in thematic forums (or in the English version of the reference, where these data are often ).

In general, if you create a PDF-file that should be read always and on everything, you should choose only professional programs.

In addition, do not get carried away with high resolution: set exactly the value of DPI, on which the document is comfortable to read. If you set too high a percentage, then on the tablets and other mobile devices the file will be opened with difficulty. This is all the more fair, the wider the spread of such gadgets in everyday life.

That's what a virtual printer is. We hope that you have learned about all its advantages and applications.

Such technologies are very relevant in recent years, as business and ordinary users are increasingly in need not only for ubiquitous access to printers, but also for maximum standardization of the formats used.