Since in recent years there has been a rapid computerization of almost all industries and the national economy, problems that until now almost no one has thought about are increasingly appearing on the scene. In particular, the issue of printing documents is of decisive importance.
And the problem here is often that you would like to send photos and graphics, text documents and spreadsheets for printing from all your devices, and not just from your computer. It's even better when you can do it even when you're away from your main workplace. A virtual printer will help you.
Different from network devices
If you have ever encountered network devices, then you already know about it. The network can be not only a printer, but also a scanner, as well as other office equipment. An entire work department can use just one scanner connected to the general network of the enterprise!
What makes a virtual printer so unique? As we alreadythey said that the rapid pace of modern life implies the ability to access the device from anywhere, not only in a particular building, but even in a city, or even the whole world. Unfortunately, a regular local network will not help you with this.
As in many other cases, the pioneer in this matter was the corporation "Google". For example, Google Cloud Print was the first to enable users to use their printing devices while being millions of miles away.
What is this?
This is basically a printer connected to the internet. If everything is in order with the connection, 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 a computer or laptop, but even directly from your smartphone. Being in another country on vacation, you can easily send photos to print in order to please your household with them.
Business Benefits
Don't assume that only home users need a virtual printer. Its functionality will surely come in handy for owners of small and medium-sized businesses.
Think for yourself: you won't have to spend time and money on laying a local network in the office itself, you won't need to configure capricious network devices. All you need is an internet connection.
In addition, such a solution allows you to increase productivity, as employees can send you important documents, even while on a business trip tocity, and even across the country.
Setup overview
Before you get access to all the benefits of this technology, you must associate a physical printer with its "cloud" counterpart. Consider this procedure using the same technology from Google as an example, since we touched on this topic earlier.
Before installing a virtual printer, make sure that the real device is connected to a specific computer or local network. Of course, you must install all the necessary drivers in advance, since the performance of all equipment largely depends on them.
The easiest way is for owners of Chromebooks of various modifications, since Google Cloud Print is natively supported in Chrome OS, and therefore it does not need any configuration. However, it's better to talk about ordinary computers and operating systems, since in our country this product from the search giant has very vague prospects.
Important! The Google Chrome browser must be installed on the computer, since it is its API that is used by this technology.
Connection order
Once you install the browser, you can connect the virtual printer connector. It's easy to do.
- You need to turn on the physical printer first.
- Start the computer, wait for the operating system to load.
- Launch the Google Chrome browser.
- Click on the icon in the form of three horizontal dashes in the upper rightcorner of the program, after which the settings dialog box will open.
- Select "Settings".
- Then you should click on the link "Show advanced settings".
- Search for the "Google Cloud Print" section. It has an item "Add a printer", on which you need to click the left mouse button.
- If asked, you must also sign in to your Google account, or create one (if you didn't 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 "Add device" button. After that, the procedure can be considered completed. Your virtual printer is ready to use. To verify this, try printing a test document.
Another option
However, under this concept, many of our users understand the technology that allows you to "print" PDF documents. By the way, in our country, until recently, this was completely irrelevant, but recently the popularity of this file format has been growing at an alarming rate. What is the reason for such "people's love"?
The point is that PDF is a standard. A standard that implies the absolute immutability of the document, on whatever machine and in whatever program it is opened. If you have ever encountered a blurry table in a.doc file, then you yourself will be able to understand all the magnificence of this characteristic. In addition, a huge amount of multimedia information can be embedded in such documents,which will not look like a "foreign body".
Remember how ridiculous the pictures look in the same Word, and you will understand what is at stake.
How to create?
Oddly enough, but a free virtual printer of this class is a rarity, and therefore you have to spend a lot of time choosing the right program. Professional applications of this quality rarely strike the imagination at a modest cost, but in recent years you can find quite a few virtual PDF printers whose developers are not greedy.
By the way, what does the term "virtual printer" mean in this case? Word is a wonderful program, and in the latest versions, the creators from Microsoft still taught it how to save documents in PDF format. The only problem is that you cannot configure their default settings.
That's what a PDF printer is for. It outputs text to a virtual "print". And at the output you get a document with professional formatting. By the way, why is such a “printer” better than numerous specialized applications for creating PDF documents?
Firstly, 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 take a look at some of these utilities.
PDFCreator
In fact, in its segment, this particular program is the standard both in terms of functionality andease of use. The good news is that all the "buns" fit in just 15 MB. The program is completely free, so domestic users will surely like it. 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 "For advanced users" item. 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 not the slightest difficulties here: as soon as you install the program, the PDFCreator printer will appear in the print menu in all text editors. As in the case of physical printing, you can set the main document parameters (DPI, margins, etc.).
Adobe PDF
Corporation «Adobe» is not known only to those people who had nothing to do with the computer. The legendary Photoshop alone is worth something! Equally useful is her virtual-j.webp" />
The program has a huge number of various settings. There are so many that you can easily create a professional-quality document or image. As you can imagine, the program is paid, so we can only recommend it to those who are really interested in first-class working tools.
Cute PDF 2.7
In this case, no money will be required from you. In addition, the size of the program is ridiculous for our times 1.5 MB. Hereonly without the “Ghostscript” add-on, the utility will work in a truncated mode, and its size is five megabytes. However, the final 6.5 MB will be quite affordable for owners of even a GPRS modem.
Unfortunately, the possibilities of the program are also very modest. In particular, the “printing” itself occurs immediately, without the appearance of any settings dialog boxes. In defense of the utility, we can only say that it provides excellent compatibility with all currently existing PDF standards.
doPDF 6.0
This free virtual printer has a great balance of functionality and simplicity. It's no joke - the entire installation package takes a miserable 1.5 MB, and without any additional elements! This volume fits a great application that allows you to create beautiful, high-quality and standardized documents.
Before setting up a virtual printer, you should familiarize yourself with its main features. In particular (which we have already discussed), you can adjust the size of the margins, change the DPI pages, set certain standards for the PDF format itself.
Important note
Whatever "virtual printer" program you use, there are some important things you should know. Even in the FAQ of the most popular (and paid to the same) software products, intelligible technical specifications for a particular PDF standard and its compatibility are extremely rare, so you often have to look for relevant information on thematic forums (or in the English version of the help, where this data isoften).
In general, if you are creating a PDF file that should be read always and on everything, you should choose only professional programs.
Also, don't get carried away with high resolution: set exactly the DPI value at which the document is comfortable to read. If you set the percentage too high, then the file will be difficult to open on tablets and other mobile devices. This is all the more fair the more such gadgets are distributed in everyday life.
This is what a virtual printer is. We hope that you have learned about all its benefits and applications.
Such technologies are very relevant in recent years, as businesses and ordinary users increasingly need not only widespread access to printers, but also the maximum standardization of the formats used.
