Printing a Document

When you want to print a document or a group of documents, you can print directly from Windows Vista without having to start the program in which the documents were created. That program, however, must be installed on your computer and will usually be started by Windows. It's a great convenience to be able to quickly send several documents to your printer and then walk away while Windows Vista does all the work.

Print a Document Using the Default Printer

Open the folder that contains the items you want to print, and select the document or documents to be printed. Multiple documents must be of the same type (all Word documents or all Notepad documents, for example).

Right-click a selected document, and choose Print from the shortcut menu.

Tip

Some programs require the use of the system default printer. To print documents that were created in those programs, you have to either use the default printer or tell Windows to switch the default-printer designation to the printer you want to use.

Print a Document Using a Specific Printer

Click the Start button, type printer in the Search box, and choose the Printers folder.

Locate and select the document or documents you want to print.

Drag the selected document or documents onto the Printers folder and onto the printer you want to use.

If a Printers dialog box appears, click Yes to confirm that you want to print multiple files.