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What is the easiest way to capture the printout of a document in a picture (i.e. GIF, BMP etc.)? Making a screenshot does not help, since the printout is different and larger than the screen. Is there a special printer driver for windows that captures the printout into pictures?

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  • Why do you want to do this in the first place? If you're trying to make a document that looks exactly like it does on your screen, would a PDF be a better solution?
    – Margaret
    Sep 4, 2009 at 7:56
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    This is useful if you want to create a document from several printouts by embedding the images. Joining several PDFs with some additional text is not as easy as embedding images.
    – Hans-Peter Störr
    Oct 25, 2009 at 9:15
  • try using pdfill. it will install a virtual prd and jpg image printer, and its free.
    – user254428
    Sep 15, 2013 at 16:09

10 Answers 10

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You can use PDFCreator. It's free and open source. Here's a bit more info on it:

  • Create PDFs from any program that is able to print Security: Encrypt PDFs and protect them from being opened, printed etc
  • New: Digitally sign your PDFs to ensure that you are the author and the file has not been modified
  • New: Create PDF/A files for long term archives
  • Send generated files via eMail
  • Create more than just PDFs: PNG, JPG, TIFF, BMP, PCX, PS, EPS
  • AutoSave files to folders and filenames based on Tags like Username, Computername, Date, Time etc.
  • Merge multiple files into one PDF Easy Install: Just say what you want and everything is installed
  • Terminal Server: PDFCreator also runs on Terminal Servers without problems
  • And the best: PDFCreator is free, even for commercial use! It is Open Source and released under the Terms of the GNU General Public License.
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  • Though that doesn't make it a picture, only a pdf. good solution if the author only wants to print later, or archive, but it won't work if he wants to modify it after, though. Depends on his need, I guess it should be detailed.
    – Gnoupi
    Sep 4, 2009 at 7:58
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    It makes pictures as well, I just added more info right now :).
    – alex
    Sep 4, 2009 at 7:59
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    Great program. You can edit preferences to make PNG default format, or you can select it per document in Save As dialog.
    – Josip
    Sep 4, 2009 at 8:11
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    One small issue. If you download the free version, it shows you ads, and that can make some anti-malware programs very unhappy. It's very much worth paying the $5 (as of 201508) license fee to get the ad free version. Other than that, /fantastic/ program!
    – James Newton
    Aug 25, 2015 at 0:10
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    This application was flagged by ESET antivirus during installation. When I tried to print vector drawing in PDF to PNG file it produced a file with resolution worse the a simple screenshot.
    – jackhab
    Jul 1, 2020 at 9:22
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What is the easiest way to capture the printout of a document in a picture (i.e. GIF, BMP etc.)? Making a screenshot does not help

oh yes, it does .... if you have the right software :)

Faststone Capture does exactly what you want:

Capture windows, objects, menus, full screen, rectangular/freehand regions and scrolling windows/web pages

Faststone Capture version 5.3 is free, and so is its portable variant.

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    +1 for actually answering what was asked, whether it's what he should be doing or not ;)
    – Margaret
    Sep 4, 2009 at 9:19
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    'what he should be doing or not' is none of my concern, i won't tell him how he has to run his computer. :) but my personal choice for this particular task would be a PDF printer too :)
    – Molly7244
    Sep 4, 2009 at 9:24
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In LibreOffice Writer (version 6.3.5.2) you can export your document as JPG or PNG:

Select Export...

And then in the Export dialog:

Select the type

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  • This seems underrated. Many have it available, it is just very hard to discover in the UI of Libreoffice.
    – Volker Siegel
    Mar 15 at 14:29
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Would printing to .pdf help?

I use cute pdf, and I think Open Office does this.

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I have had good luck with Foxit Reader.

It does not provide direct print to image, but instead provides a print-to-pdf print driver. It then also provides a way to copy a selected area as an image on the clipboard using the SnapShot tool (where you can then paste into mspaint or some other software). The resulting resolution depends on how scrolled in you are.

SnapShot

Compared to the other answers, this is a better solution in that:

  1. The installer does not come with any malware or ads (cutepdf and PDFCreator are both blocked at my work for this reason).
  2. The area allowed to convert is not limited by what can fit on your screen (Faststone can scroll down only, not left and right). When selecting text, Foxit Reader will scroll the window as you approach the edge, allowing you to scroll to the appropriate location in the document.
  3. Snappy PDF reader with native-looking UI (more intuitive UI if you're a regular MS Office user, but without the bloat -- Foxit Reader is also very fast compared to Adobe Reader and MS Office programs).
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  • It's easier to do Win-Shift-S than this. And this does not answer the original problem or the cited question.
    – noelicus
    Feb 14, 2020 at 12:38
  • @noelicus, actually Win-Shift-S fails my point #2. With Foxit, you can take a multiple page screenshot (beyond what can fit on your screen). Additionally, every "document" editor I've ever used supports print-to-pdf. Since the format was not specified, I did not specify that a step to convert from docx to pdf might be required.
    – Casey Kuball
    Feb 15, 2020 at 5:33
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Use Print to TIFF (author is Pascal Damman).

  1. Add a local printer
  2. Use an existing port: FILE: (Print to File)
  3. Have Disk...
  4. Browse to \Bitmap_Driver\Pack, and pick bitmap.inf
  5. If this isn't the first time: Replace the current driver
  6. Next, Next, Finish
  7. Set b&w color
  8. After print rename file extension to tiff
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Not explicitly "printing", but this Chrome extension I found to be fantastic for the problem of "rendered webpage -> png". It's created by an independent developer, and in addition to being found on the Chrome Web Store, there's also a MIT-licensed version of it on GitHub, as well as a premium offering.

Full Page Screen Capture

Example output:

Disclaimer: I am not in any affiliated with this extension or author. I just really love software that works well.

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Some printer drivers that can print to disk in various formats eg. pdf or png are available as shareware, trialware or freeware.

A free image printer driver is available here. Haven't tried any of them though.

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Try a virtual printer (driver), something like the link below: https://code-industry.net/imageprinter/

It depends really on the specifications you need. High quality 300dpi TIFF for prints or just a screen quality 75 dpi type image suitable for email. Or some of the apps/driver may have all the selection.

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Another solution is PDF-XChange Viewer. It can export any pages you want to the expected image format

Export images dialog

Export menu

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