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Saturday, February 21, 2009

How To Share A Printer Across The Internet (Cross Platform)

Sent to you by Hemi via Google Reader:

How To Share A Printer Across The Internet (Cross Platform)

via MakeUseOf.com by Karl L. Gechlik on 2/21/09

PS_Head That's right boys and girls you read that correctly, and without any Admin intervention or setting up and modifying any firewall/router permissions. This little application gets installed on the machine you want to print from and on the machine you want to print to.

Once the software is installed and you choose what printer you want to share it is easy to print across the interwebs. The best part is not that it is free for standard use, but that it works on Windows, Macs and Linux!

Let's check it out! First we download the 1.6MB installer from PrintAnywhere and then launch it. There are separate download links for Windows, Linux and Mac.

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We normally hate signing up for services but here it is understandable seeming as you will be sharing out your devices. Choose to create a new user account by selecting the button below and hitting next.

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The only required information here is your nickname and your email address. You need to provide a legit email address because that is where they will send your password. You can always use a destructible email account if you are super paranoid.

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That's all there is to the installation. Now let's take a look at how to configure our remote printing.

If you leave the checkbox to open the PrinterShare console checked, it will open for you automatically. Otherwise you will have to open it from the start menu or the system tray.

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You will see your user number (which you will need to connect from the remote client) and all your installed printers. Just highlight the one you want to use and hit the share button below. The button will turn from Share to Unshare after it has been clicked.

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Now go to your email and find your password. With that you can install the client on the remote machine. Just follow the steps above but this time when asked for a username and password you have one to give it.

Once that is done simply click "find printers" on your client. Type in your user ID and hit "find". It will show you the shared printer and its status. Double click on it.

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It will now appear below as a shared printer. You can already test it out. Go find a test document to print.

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You will now have a printer called PrinterShare that is accessible from any program that can print.

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Now pick your printer (if you have shared multiple ones) and that's all there is to it. Using this free version it will print a cover sheet with an advertisement on it unless you pay a premium fee.

I can't justify that though - $20.00 vs. a little paper and ink…

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