How to Use Paperless Printer for Free

What is the meaning of the Paperless printing? For anyone who does not know about this term, it means that printing any document and saving it as the PDF, Image or word document. So, in other words it is a virtual printer which will print the documents as the PDF file. There are plenty of programs and utilities which can be used as the paperless printer.

All you need to do is install the printer driver and then use any document managing tool to print the document, it will be saved as the PDF file. If you want to print the webpage, Google Chrome offers the built-in free paperless printer which can save any PDF file or webpage as the PDF document on your computer. Other free tools include "Paperless printer" which is absolute free of cost but can only be used at home. Here's the step by step guide to use Paperless Printer.

Part 1. How to Use Paperless Printer on Windows and Mac
Part 2. The Best Alternative to Paperless Printer

Part 1Steps for Using Paperless Printer for Free

There are many tools which can be used as paperless printers both on Widows or Mac OS X. Windows users will need to install a third party program such as "Paperless Printer" which is free for personal use but will cost a lot of money for the standard or professional version. Here's how you can use Paperless printer on both Windows and Mac OS X.

Step by step guide to use Paperless Printer on Windows:

Get the latest version of Paperless printer on your Windows computer. After installation, a virtual printer will be added to your computer.
Open the program in which you want to print the PDF file such as Microsoft Word or Google chrome. We are using it with the Microsoft Word, but the method to use it any program is the same. Click on the "File > Print" button.
Now, select the Printer by clicking the dropdown menu, you will need to select paperless printer from the list.
Finally, hit the "Print" button and the output PDF file will be stored on your computer.

Step by Step guide to use Paperless Printer on Mac:
Mac users will not need to install any utility or tool because it already has the virtual printer installed in the Mac OS X.

The process to use this printer is pretty much similar to the windows version except for a few changes. Open the document that you want to print using paperless printer and use "Ctrl + P" command which will open the printing window of the program.
On the bottom left corner of this window, click on the little arrow button and select "Save as PDF" option from this list.

Finally, hit the print button to use the paperless printer on your Mac. The output document will be saved in the "Documents" folder on your Mac.

Part 2A Better Choice than Paperless Printer

Although Paperless Printer is an easy way to print paperless documents on your computer, yet it lacks many features. With the price tag of PDF editor, it has nothing but saving the documents as PDF files. On the other hand, Wondershare PDFelement for Windows and Mac OS X seems like a perfect option to create, edit, convert, print or even the PDF files.

Get my 14-day trial

The business version of the Wondershare PDFelement will let you even connect the program with the famous cloud services such as Google Drive or Dropbox, so, you can directly save the documents on the cloud. In case of printing, you can print the PDF files from the program to go paperless edition. OCR or Optical Character Recognition provides a way to edit the scanned documents on your computer and it includes a built-in OCR feature. Lastly, there is a discount available for volume licensing to help the small business to get best PDF editor and printer at cheaper price. Here's the step by step guide to use PDFelement Printer for Windows and Mac OS X.

1. How to Print a PDF

There are two ways of opening the PDF file. You can right click on the file and select Open in "Wondershare PDFelement" Alternatively, open the application and drag the PDF.

Once the PDF file is opened in the program, use the [Command + P] on Mac or [Ctrl + P] on Windows Shortcut key and it will open the "Printer Preferences". In the bottom right side of the window, click on the "PDF" and select "Save as PDF".

2. How to Create a PDF

PDFelement provides different ways to create PDF files, you can create a PDF from the blank page, can create the PDF file from the word document, PowerPoint presentation, Excel sheets or images. Here's a small tutorial for that:

Click on the "Create PDF" to create PDF files from other files. If you want to create a blank PDF, click on the File button on the top select "Create". Now, choose the "Blank Document" from the list. The next step is to save the PDF file on your computer. Select the location for the PDF file and click on the "Save" button.

Once the PDF file is opened, you can make changes to the file by clicking on the "Edit" button. You can also add new text, image or forms in the PDF file. After making changes to the PDF file, don't forget to save the PDF file on your computer.

3. How to Share PDF

It also let you instantly share the PDF files using the program. After creating the PDF File, click on "File" and select "Attach to PDF" or "Dropbox" from the list. If you select the "Attach to Email", it will open the mail application. On case of Dropbox, click on "Upload" button and select the appropriate folder to save the PDF file.