Printing from Windows 8 Modern UI-Style Apps

Hi,
Using the inbuilt PDF reader in Windows 8 is great, basic and easy to use. But what about printing the document? This one didn’t jump out at me when investigating, so figured it was worth sharing.

Right clicking to bring up the bottom menu gives you options like ‘Save as’ and ‘ More > Info’ but there’s no print option!

There’s a couple of default ways to print from all Windows 8 modern UI-style apps (you can’t use the word Metro anymore – http://www.theverge.com/2012/8/2/3215039/microsoft-metro-name-dispute-developers ).

The quickest for a keyboard shortcut lover is Ctrl-P. This brings up the print menu from the right hand side, and lets you choose which installed printer to print to.

For the touchy-feely type, bring up the charms menu by either swiping from the right hand side, or with a mouse, move your pointer to the right top or bottom corner, and move the pointer towards the middle. From the charms menu, select ‘Devices’ and you’ll be able to choose your printer there.

I think Microsoft could have made this a bit clearer for printing, but at the same time they are trying to get everyone to follow a certain method for doing similar things – if you want to do something to any connected device such as a printer or a second screen, do it via the devices area. Windows 7 already was doing this with the Devices and Printers area in the control panel, so this is just the next step.

Good luck!

 

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