10 things to do with your printer… …
apart from print documents! We outline some uses you may never have considered
Paperless schmaperless. There’s still nothing quite like printed paper for easy reading and showing off your photos. Just ask the International Space Station crew, who recently took delivery of a new HP inkjet for printing keepsakes to bring home. Apart from zero-gravity modification, it’s nothing fancy – it ‘just prints’ (see www.snipca.com/28242).
You, too, can get plenty of mileage out of ‘just printing’, with no need for expensive extra supplies. All you need for these projects is an A4 printer with ink and paper, plus the odd household essential such as sticky tape and, ideally, normal gravitational forces.
Make sticky labels and decals
Your homebrew bottles and jars of home-made jam deserve equally personal labels - and this printing hack delivers a much classier result than white stickers. First, design your labels using any office software. Then print them on plain paper, and cover them with clear sticky tape. Cut the labels to the size you want, soak them in cold water for five minutes, and then gently rub the paper off. The ink image will stay on the tape, which regains its ‘stickiness’ when it dries. Here’s a step-by-step Youtube video: www.snipca. com/28246 (see screenshot below right)
You can make ‘decals’ (silhouette stickers) using the same steps, but with designs instead of lettering. Free, open-source program Inkscape ( https:// inkscape.org) is ideal for creating designs.
Print QR codes
Free, online tool QR Code Generator ( http://goqr.me, see screenshot below) lets you create unique, printable QR codes embedded with information of your choice, including text, links, maps and more. So you could embed the recipe for that home-made jam, for example, then print the code and stick it on the jar. Anyone can read your recipe if they scan the jar with a QR scanner app such as Scan (free for Android and IOS from www.scan.me).
Print all your installed fonts
The hardest part of designing labels and cases is, of course, choosing a font from the hundreds on your PC. Free, portable program Printmyfonts ( www.snipca. com/28252) helps by displaying a word or phrase of your choice in every one of your installed fonts (see screenshot above). You can opt to display all variations (such as bold and italic); add foreign characters; exclude certain styles (such as serif) and so on, then print the list to see how the fonts look on paper.
Printmyfonts is safe, but Windows 10 Smartscreen tried to block it on our PC (as with many portable tools; see our feature on page 60). If this happens, click ‘More info’, then ‘Run anyway’.
Create CD cases
Free program Disketch ( www.snipca. com/28260) lets you design covers that fit perfectly into CD and DVD cases. You can use your own photos, add frames and clipart, and even import track names from your PC’S disc drive. Disketch is safe to install, but be aware it comes with an additional ‘Suite’ (basically a menu) of software from its developer NCH.
Free web tool Paper CD Case ( www. papercdcase.com) is less creative, but
avoids the need to install anything at all. Enter a list of tracks (which you can import from the built-in music database), then export a PDF that you can print and fold to create a disc case.
Print a list of files
Filelist Creator ( www.snipca. com/28253), another free, portable tool from the maker of Printmyfonts, generates a list of all the files and folders you drag on to it. You can then customise the details displayed (for example, size and resolution information for every photo), then print the list with one click (see screenshot below) or export it in a choice of formats, including spreadsheet. Perfect for creating CD inserts for those discs full of backup files.
Tile-print giant posters
Sending photos off to be printed larger than A4 can cost a pretty penny, and you may not even like the result. So why not do it yourself by printing separate A4 sections, then joining them together like wallpaper? You need to create and align the sections perfectly to hide the joins, so the right software is key.
Microsoft Paint has basic tile-printing built in (go to Print, ‘Page setup’, ‘Fit to’), but it’s not particularly powerful or accurate. Instead, use free web tool Posterizer Rasterbator ( http://posterizer. online/rasterbator), which lets you see how your A4 sections will look next to an average-size door (see screenshot below left). You can then download the ‘tiles’ as a ZIP of PDFS or JPEGS.
We also like Easy Poster Printer ( www. snipca.com/28244), but it’s just added a £2.09 price tag and is now a Windows 8.1/10 app instead of a traditional program. On the upside, it includes powerful poster-creation tools such as text and filters, and lets you create posters up to 20x20 metres.
Print web articles for easier reading
Paper is still streets ahead of any screen for readability, especially if you like to make notes on web articles - or print crosswords from newspaper websites. To make the prints even easier to read, first enter the page’s URL into free web tool Printfriendly ( www.printfriendly.com). It automatically strips out adverts, then lets you remove any photo with one click (see screenshot below) and customise text size and style before printing.
Cover your shed with a mural
If you have a sheet of printable white labels lying around, carpenter Steve Ramsey has a clever use for them – but only after you’ve peeled the labels off. Print a photo on to the shiny backing paper, and it’ll transfer on to any porous wood surface such as a toolbox, or even your shed walls. Remember the print will be reversed, so flip it on your PC before printing, especially if it includes text. Here’s Steve with a run-through: www.snipca.com/28255.
Print a customised Google Map
Google Maps automatically removes clutter and lets you add notes before you print, but that’s about it. Free web-based tool Google Map Customizer ( www. snipca.com/28248) goes several steps further by letting you customise a map view into a printable work of art. Use it to highlight only the features you want - say, road networks (see screenshot below) - then choose dimensions and print. There’s no built-in print or screenshot function, but Customizer recommends using Webpage Screenshots (Chrome www.snipca.com/28250; Firefox www.snipca.com/28251) to capture the customised page in full before printing.
Print directly on to fabric
Do not try this at home with a T-shirt – you’ll break your printer. But if you’ve got a piece of cotton you don’t mind cutting to A4 size, you can print on it using ink, greaseproof paper, scissors and an iron. First, iron the greaseproof paper on top of the fabric so they stick together. Now cut the combined sheet to size, and load it in your printer so it prints on the fabric side. Once printed, peel off the greaseproof paper.