Today it is impossible to imagine a user of a modern PC and software installed on it without using a printer, because the use of paper documents and photographs has not been canceled yet. Perhaps that is why it is worthwhile to figure out which program for printing documents and photos is best suited to each specific case. At the same time, it will be possible to understand the main features offered by applications of this direction.
What capabilities should any program for printing documents and photos have
To begin with, we note that in software today you can find a large number of a variety of utilities that help optimize the printing process of documents, images or photos. Naturally, you can find the simplest tools for printing, say, a plain text document. And sometimes you need to use professional and semi-professional utilities to ensure print quality.
Thus, it immediately becomes clear that also a program for printing text documents, as a rule, should be limited to a standard primitive set of functions. Judge for yourself, because when printing text from Notepad using a conventional laser printer, nothing supernatural from the application is, in general, required. It all comes down to correctly displaying text on paper even with a poor printer.
Situations When Powerful Printing Utilities Are Required
Another thing is when a graphic is sent for printing, for example, a high-resolution photo created using a modern digital camera. In this case, the program for printing photos should have advanced features. This applies, by the way, not only improved color reproduction , but also some additional features for editing and image preprocessing .
Naturally, many can immediately exclaim that the most universal program is Adobe Photoshop. Let us disagree with this, since initially this software package was designed specifically for editing graphics, and certainly not for printing. In addition, among the software products designed specifically for printing, there are more powerful utilities that make it possible to optimize the process so much that they are actively used on digital printing electronic equipment in modern photo studios.
In addition, such applications are used when creating and printing large format posters, postcards or posters, which cannot be done with simple means.
The simplest programs for printing text
Among the simplest programs, one can single out standard text editors such as Notepad or simple office text editors such as WordPad.
Such applications, although they are not specialized utilities, nevertheless, access the printer installed in the system directly, allowing you to get, so to speak, a paper version of an electronic text document.
Program for printing Word-documents
Office applications such as Microsoft Word are much more interesting. In addition to the Word program itself, which allows, as is the case with primitive text editors, to instantly print documents, you can find quite a few specialized utilities for improving quality.
This is due to the fact that the word processor itself is capable of combining both text and graphics in documents. That's when the graphics are present, third-party utilities show themselves much better than the standard Word application. Among other things, sometimes you may need utilities to print specific documents with non-standard formatting.
One of the most interesting is WordPage. It is very easy to use. The main purpose is to optimize the printing of books and brochures that were created in Word. The application allows you to print, for example, two sheets of A5 format on one sheet of A6. In addition to everything, the application has support for bilateral printers, which, of course, not only optimizes the process itself, but also reduces the time spent on it.
Utilities for printing photos on documents
No less interesting is some kind of photo printing program for documents. As a vivid example, you can use the Studio Pro application, which allows you to prepare a photo for a document in a template in a matter of minutes.
In the application itself, you can make image adjustments, adjust brightness and contrast, make full control over the position of images on a sheet, etc. In addition, this utility can be used as a means of managing modern cameras and even change their basic settings programmatically.
The most interesting thing is that in this package two more powerful utilities are presented. This is StudioUEC for automating the shooting process and programmatically entering a universal signature on electronic bank cards, and StudioTW (the so-called Twain-module), which is very often used to issue a driver’s license by the relevant government services. As you can see, each program for printing photo documents (or rather paperwork with ready-made photos) is interesting and unique in its own way.
The simplest photo printing apps
As for software packages for working with photographs, they can be divided into two broad categories: applications for home use and professional or semi-professional utilities for working in studios. Among the simplest products for the average user, programs like Studio 2.0.0, Pics Print, Photo Print Pilot, PrintStation, MultiPrint, etc. can be noted.
Each utility of this type allows you to pre-edit and process photos, import them from your hard drive, optical drive, removable USB-drive, etc. The same Studio 2.0.0 utility has the ability to place multiple photos on one sheet. Programs like Photo Print Pilot can add effects to selected pictures. For example, it can be a beautiful border selected from a list of templates or created from another photo. Here, as they say, only a flight of fancy is required of the user, well, but the programs themselves simply have plenty of funds.
Professional printing studio applications
As for the most powerful applications, here, of course, one can note such software packages as ACD Photo Sale, ArcSoft PhotoPrinter, etc.
But now, according to many professionals working in photo studios, the palm belongs to a unique software product called SILKYPIX Developer Studio Pro. Its capabilities are such that in some aspects related to editing and preparing photos for printing, this application can be quite serious competition to the same Adobe Photoshop, and sometimes surpass it.
Not to mention the photo, we also note the fact that this program for printing photos is capable of even more. The fact is that with its help you can easily print even watermarks, and this is already an impressive indicator. Naturally, this will require not some simple printer, but modern professional equipment.
The only thing that upsets is the fact that, alas, almost all applications of this type are paid and cost about 30-60 US dollars.
Programs for working with PDF documents
Now a few words about universal PDF documents. If anyone does not know how the program for printing PDF documents can use the universal software package for scanners ABBYY Fine Reader, capable of converting scanned paper Talmuds into documents of this format, as they say, on the fly, and then print them while preserving original formatting, color reproduction, etc., then there are a lot of possibilities. It is interesting.
Another interesting program for printing PDF documents (and not only) is the FinePrint application, which is a universal printer driver. The program can not only create PDF documents, but also manage absolutely all print options, including printing several pages on one sheet, creating letterheads and forms, setting indents for binding, scaling large pages and images in standard paper formats, combining several print jobs into a single document, printing booklets and postcards, using watermarks and footers in the press with the time or date, changing the color image to black and white and much more. You can’t list everything.
Here it is worth noting another feature. Not to mention the possibility of using duplex printing to save paper, you can turn on a special system to save ink cartridges.
Creating Seals
Separately, it is worth mentioning what constitutes a program for creating seals of standard samples, which will then be manufactured in a production way. One of the simplest and most accessible for ordinary users is the Stamp 1.3 utility with a Russified interface.
Although the application itself has only its own templates, which is a sin to hide, many users based on them have successfully faked official stamps and seals. If you delve a little into the templates and perform simple actions, you can achieve just an amazing result. The application even has a blur function, which makes the counterfeit print or stamp look more realistic. In addition, this program for creating seals and stamps is available in the portable version (Portable), which eliminates the need for its installation on the hard drive. In other words, you can run it from a regular flash drive anytime, anywhere.
In principle, you can use the so-called "cloud" programs, the essence of which is that the user needs to go to a specific site and, following the instructions step by step, create a print layout online. But such a method has not received much distribution.
Total
Here, in fact, is a brief overview of the applications that may be needed to optimize printing. Which program for printing documents or photographs will be used depends on the particular case and on what result is required to be obtained.
Along the way, it is worth recalling that the printer plays an important role here. So you have to pay attention to him. It is clear, after all, that the simplest laser “old man” is suitable only for text documents. Even inkjet printers for printing photos are not always suitable. To get high-quality photos, you need a good photo printer, not to mention the professional equipment that is used in photo studios.