I will be in the States for three months, taking my laptop with me. I have a
wireless printer at home. If I leave the printer turned on, can I possibly
print documents from down south so that I have them when I get them back?
Possibly a stupid question but I thought I’d ask any way.
In this excerpt from
Answercast #95 I look at the idea of leaving a printer on at home and
printing documents while on a trip.
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Whilst agreeing with Leo that his approach is the safer, there is at least one other way of remotely printing.
I have a well-known make of printer, Wi Fi connected via router etc.
That printer has its own e-mail address with the maker.
I can e-mail both printing files such as PDFs,and “raw” files such as WORD DOC Files, EXCEL XLS files etc to that allocated e-mail address.
As normal, they are sent as attachments; and there are some simple restrictions.
These will print almost immediately if the printer is “up and running”; or the e-mail will be held until such time as the printer is found to be available.
It has worked successfully on tests; but I have not used it “for real”.
Isn’t there an option – Print to file – that lets you save your documents in a specified folder for later printing?
Yes, Snert, that can also be done, along with retaining the documents in original file format etc.
But assuming the questioner has a good reason for asking the question, such as allowing someone else at home to peruse/proof-read the documents in the mean time before his return home, there is another way in which he could achieve that goal and more, by setting up a remote control system on another PC at home, accessed from his portable PC/Laptop/Netbook.
That way, he could log on to the home PC from, say, his hotel WiFi, copy the files over from the laptop, to the home PC, followed by printing them from the home PC using that Remote Control.
Programs such as TeamViewer allow this, including the added security of a VPN (Virtual Private Network) to work over; and also that he would then have effective Backup by having the source documents on both his laptop and on the home PC.
And there are several other uses that such remote control programs can achieve.
For example, if I want to have a larger screen attached to my Netbook temporarily, I access the 10 inch Netbook remotely from my 20 inch Tower PC.
Thus I do not have to find cables, another larger monitor etc.
Another is to connect my Laptop by HDMI cable to the much larger Television, then control the Laptop remotely and comfortably from my Netbook sitting in my armchair, allowing the whole family at home to have a good view of SKYPE contacts, the Laptop being positioned so that its built-in camera is picking us up.
So following that route, the questioner could have much more than Renote Printing available.