The next cloud issue for CAD vendors: printing to the cloud

CAD vendors like to describe how quickly renderings and analyses will be completed by cloud computing. They love describing how updates will become automatic and universal, and how data will be irrevocably safe. They hate talking about the price. And they haven't mentioned the other wheel of the CAD-on-the cloud segway: printing.

But HP and Google are.

HP was the first with printers that have email addresses. Send a document to the printer's unique email address, and HP takes care of rasterizing it and delivering it to the printer associated with the address. HP and Canon have Android apps that allow me to print pictures from my Android cell phone to a printer connected to a computer in my office.

The latest release  of the Chrome Web browser should allow me to print documents to the cloud -- actually, to printers from devices in a manner similar to HP.

(In the Chrome v9.0.597.1 browser, click the wrench icon, choose Options, click the Under the Hood tab, scroll down, and then click Sign in to Google Cloud Print. Once you sign in with your Google account, a second button appears in the Options dialog box: Manage Print Settings. Click it to access the Google Cloud Print control panel, which shows Microsoft's XPS writer as the only printer.)

But that's as far as I've gotten. I can't figure out how to add more printers to the Cloud Print panel. Worse, I can't figure out how to print! (Google's help is unhelpful.) Well, one day, maybe.

(Some more details on Google Cloud Print: it works on Windows, OS X, and Linux. It prints directly to cloud-aware printers, and indirectly to traditional printers through a proxy. It converts documents to PDF format.)

 

 

Comments

[DocPaul]

Hi,

I've just setup Google Cloud printing and I also cannot find how to print to it!! Did you get any further, I can't find anyone who has...

Thanks!