How To Share A Printer Over The Internet

share a printer over the internet That’s right boys and girls you read that correctly, you can share a printer over the internet. All 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 theis remote printing 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.

printanywhere - remote printing software

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.

remote printing over internet

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 disposable 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.

remote printing xp

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”¦

PS_Select

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Do you have any super simple cross platform ways to share a printer over the internet? Put us on in the comments!


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Karl L. Gechlik

Karl L. Gechlik here from AskTheAdmin.com doing a weekly guest blogging spot for our new found friends at MakeUseOf.com. I run my own consulting company, manage AskTheAdmin.com and work a full 9 to 5 job on Wall Street as a System Administrator.

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  • sam February 21, 2009
    0 likes

    This is great! Thanks so much. Hope it will continue.

    you can get interesting post about web usability and technology on my blog. webusabilityhelp.blogspot.com

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  • Gordon February 21, 2009
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    thanks a lot!! i was looking for something like this

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  • Lewis King February 21, 2009
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    Is there a Mac setup wizard? Or does it have to be started on Windows?

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    • Karl L. Gechlik February 22, 2009
      0 likes

      Yes there is a mac installer but I did not try it out. Only Windows and Linux.

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    • X August 7, 2009
      0 likes

      Lewis king

      yes i have mac setup wizard but you have to send me your nude pics on my email address. if i receive it then i will send U.

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  • shrapnel09 February 21, 2009
    0 likes

    I don’t know… It seems like this would encourage a lot of inappropriate use of company properties. At least the first thing I think of is setting up my home computer to print to my work printer, but I guess it could be the other way around.
    It seems a lot like faxing. If you could give people one time use to print to your printer, it would eliminate the need for faxes.

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  • dean February 21, 2009
    0 likes

    Remember you cant use this on 64Bit windows OSs, It is the only reason I didnt use when i was setting up remote printing from our windows 2008 server. We had to use VPN instead.

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  • sbemem February 21, 2009
    0 likes

    very cool.
    sbemem@gmail.com

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  • jgstew February 22, 2009
    0 likes

    Yoics is an interesting alternative that does a lot more as well. Yoics might be overkill just for printing and will not install on linux.

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  • Void February 22, 2009
    0 likes

    After downloading this program my mac crashed. It has the latest version of Leopard and is an Intel MBP. I’d highly recommend that anyone with a similar mac not download this. Finder, Safari, Spotlight, iChat, as well as every other program would not load. Finder did not even show when I opened the window that normally allows me to relaunch it or force quit other applications. Do not, I repeat, DO NOT download this application if you are not willing to risk such a situation.

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  • Derge February 22, 2009
    0 likes

    This is pretty dumb. There are better ways to do this. One way is IPP. Linux and Mac can act as an IPP print server using CUPS. XP Pro, Windows Server, (and probably versions of Vista) can act as an IPP print server too, because it is built into IIS. All three can act as IPP print clients really easily too. It just requires you to open/forward one port in your firewall. Big friggin’ deal.

    This crappware program requires that you sign up with them and pay them money unless you want ads printed out when you print something. Also, obviously if it doesn’t require you to open/forward an incoming port, it is forcing your print server machine to make an outgoing connection to their web print service which is probably worse than opening an incoming port in this case since you don’t know and have no reason to trust these folks.

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    • Karl L. Gechlik February 22, 2009
      0 likes

      This is a free application that works with no administrative knowledge. CUPS, IPP and others DO require this. As for security – I wouldnt recomend printing your tax return but a simple party flyer or similar is what this is all about!

      Wow so many people hating on apps for ease of use, Not everyone is an Admin!

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      • Derge February 22, 2009
        0 likes

        Normal (unprivileged) users would probably be unable to install the software. If that is the case, than administrative privileges would be required.

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        • Yeti February 23, 2009
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          Totally agree. And I don’t like the idea of using this software myself. Would rather create a VPN connection and print via that, not using a 3rd party connection.

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  • what February 22, 2009
    0 likes

    no body heard of CUPS before?

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    • Karl L. Gechlik February 22, 2009
      0 likes

      Of course we have – this is just an ALTERNATIVE. Say it with me now boys and girls!

      | Like
  • El Di Pablo February 23, 2009
    0 likes

    Nice Karl! Looks like it went FP on digg! Good work :-)

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  • Fred February 27, 2009
    0 likes

    Um, for Windows, why not just configure/enable sharing on your XP or Vista machine? Why kill more trees and waste ink with this? I don’t get it.

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  • SEM September 10, 2009
    0 likes

    Cool! But you should use the existing code to create a program that lets anyone print to your printer, making annoying fax machines completely obsolete.

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  • laptop October 16, 2009
    0 likes

    thanks for sharing , i will test it asap :-)

    | Like
  • sam November 15, 2009
    0 likes

    Hey m trying to print some reports from other computer using crystal reports but it giving error … i dont know wht to do !

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