Driver That Prints To Disk As Image (eg, .jpg or .bmp)?

[Gary Brown]

Hi,

Is there a XP print driver that outputs as an image file, such as .jpg or
..bmp?
XP has a "print to file" driver but that is limited to text.

Thanks,
Gary

 

[Grinder]

Hi,

Is there a XP print driver that outputs as an image file, such as .jpg or
.bmp?
XP has a "print to file" driver but that is limited to text.

I used the "NED Image Printer Driver" a number of years ago, and it was
adequate. It look kind of pricey now. There are quite a few "Image
Printers" at download.com:

http://www.download.com/3120-20_4-0.html?tg=dl-20&qt=image printer&tag=srch

Here's a freebie that will generate PDFs:

http://www.download.com/Anything2PDF-Free/3000-10743_4-10443273.html?tag=lst-0-3

 

[kony]

Hi,

Is there a XP print driver that outputs as an image file, such as .jpg or
.bmp?
XP has a "print to file" driver but that is limited to text.

Thanks,
Gary

I'd imagine there are several, especially if you are looking
for non-freeware, but here's one free for personal use,
http://www.rarefind.com/paperlessprinter/index.html
Main factor might be the configuration available to suit
your needs, or not.

 

[Ken Maltby]

Hi,

Is there a XP print driver that outputs as an image file, such as .jpg or
.bmp?
XP has a "print to file" driver but that is limited to text.

Thanks,
Gary

Call me dense, but how would such a situation arise?

Are you talking about a Print Screen function?

Do you mean creating an image file from a text viewer or
editor? An graphic image of the text page?

What application or situation when you have an image
displayed, where there is no option to save the image, as
an image file?

If you right click on a .jpg file, in XP, and select "Print"
you should have the "Photo Printing Wizard" window
pop-up.

Just how does the need, to do what you appear to be
asking for, arise? What software is presenting the image
you want to "output as an image file"?

Luck;
Ken

 

[kony]

Call me dense, but how would such a situation arise?

Are you talking about a Print Screen function?

Do you mean creating an image file from a text viewer or
editor? An graphic image of the text page?

What application or situation when you have an image
displayed, where there is no option to save the image, as
an image file?

If you right click on a .jpg file, in XP, and select "Print"
you should have the "Photo Printing Wizard" window
pop-up.

Just how does the need, to do what you appear to be
asking for, arise? What software is presenting the image
you want to "output as an image file"?

I belive the OP wants a print driver so ALL applications can
output anything they can print, as an image... not just
image files but any and all files.

 

[Grinder]

Call me dense, but how would such a situation arise?

Are you talking about a Print Screen function?

Do you mean creating an image file from a text viewer or
editor? An graphic image of the text page?

What application or situation when you have an image
displayed, where there is no option to save the image, as
an image file?

If you right click on a .jpg file, in XP, and select "Print"
you should have the "Photo Printing Wizard" window
pop-up.

Just how does the need, to do what you appear to be
asking for, arise? What software is presenting the image
you want to "output as an image file"?

I can't speak for the OP, but I once had to resort to an image printer
to add Print Preview capability to a collection of subordinate
applications that I did not have developmental control over. My
aggregate program could induce those applictions to print to the image
printer, producing a file that I could present as the preview.

 

[Grinder]

Call me dense, but how would such a situation arise?

Are you talking about a Print Screen function?

Do you mean creating an image file from a text viewer or
editor? An graphic image of the text page?

What application or situation when you have an image
displayed, where there is no option to save the image, as
an image file?

If you right click on a .jpg file, in XP, and select "Print"
you should have the "Photo Printing Wizard" window
pop-up.

Just how does the need, to do what you appear to be
asking for, arise? What software is presenting the image
you want to "output as an image file"?

Oh, I thought of another use I made of the image printer.

When working with an insurance administration firm, they wanted to keep
a copy of every correspondence they sent to a provider or a client. By
using the image printer, they were able to keep an electronic store of
all printed documents with a high degree of confidence that their file
matched what as actually sent to the other party.

 

[Ken Maltby]

Oh, I thought of another use I made of the image printer.

When working with an insurance administration firm, they wanted to keep a
copy of every correspondence they sent to a provider or a client. By
using the image printer, they were able to keep an electronic store of all
printed documents with a high degree of confidence that their file matched
what as actually sent to the other party.

It looks to me that Kony's "Paperless Printer" would match
to OP's requirements, but I still can't think of many situations
where I would want to use something other than a graphics
tool to create a graphic image file. Or where I had text that
I would want to save as a .jpg or .bmp; that I wouldn't just
add the text to a graphic editor, which was made to create
graphic images.

If it were just a .txt file to a .jpg, you could use InfanView.

Luck;
Ken

 

[kony]

It looks to me that Kony's "Paperless Printer" would match
to OP's requirements, but I still can't think of many situations
where I would want to use something other than a graphics
tool to create a graphic image file. Or where I had text that
I would want to save as a .jpg or .bmp; that I wouldn't just
add the text to a graphic editor, which was made to create
graphic images.

If it were just a .txt file to a .jpg, you could use InfanView.

Luck;
Ken

One possible use is to create a visual representation of a
file / design/etc that is used by a high priced program that
not everyone has, like certain design software. There may
be free viewers for some apps but this will require others
to install these viewer apps when they don't want to or
don't have permissions to on the system. An image output
is then the most universal and likely to be viewable by
anyone.

I would recommend TXT to PNG or GIF instead of JPG though,
or even to BMP then conversion to PNG or GIF, JPG is just
horrible for TXT unless so barely compressed that the file
size is huge (relatively speaking).

 

[Ken Maltby]

One possible use is to create a visual representation of a
file / design/etc that is used by a high priced program that
not everyone has, like certain design software. There may
be free viewers for some apps but this will require others
to install these viewer apps when they don't want to or
don't have permissions to on the system. An image output
is then the most universal and likely to be viewable by
anyone.

OK, and your "Paperless Printer" might make that easier,
but I would still probably use a screen capture tool or the
ability many graphic editors have for importing image data.

I would recommend TXT to PNG or GIF instead of JPG though,
or even to BMP then conversion to PNG or GIF, JPG is just
horrible for TXT unless so barely compressed that the file
size is huge (relatively speaking).

Text is super easy, just use Cut & Paste with the clipboard
or drag and drop for some image editing tools. Heck you
could Ctrl-C a selection of text then Paste it in XP's Paint if
nothing else.

Luck;
Ken

 

[kony]

OK, and your "Paperless Printer" might make that easier,
but I would still probably use a screen capture tool or the
ability many graphic editors have for importing image data.

Yes a screencap is more and more viable these days with
higher resolution monitors allowing more pixels per screen
cap, avoiding having to pan around in a larger workspace to
screencap it all. Depends on your needs really, the most
flexible would obviuosly be, to be able to do it either way
depending on the situation.

Text is super easy, just use Cut & Paste with the clipboard
or drag and drop for some image editing tools. Heck you
could Ctrl-C a selection of text then Paste it in XP's Paint if
nothing else.

Maybe but that doesn't preserve the original page layout or
formatting much of the time, requiring more time to edit in
some way. I suppose it again depends on the situation, I'd
seldom capture text to an image anyway unless it just
happened to be a blurb under a picture and the minor size
difference outweighed needing multiple files to display
everything.