Printing in Thin Client (RDC)
24.September.2008 19:27 Filed in: Tech Tips
If you are a District 21 employee who is on the
Microsoft Exchange e-mail, calendaring, contacts
server, you also can, and should be using Thin
Client, via Microsoft’s Remote Desktop Connection.
Printing in Thin Client has stymied many in the past,
but District 21 has begun using Thin Client
technology at just the right time because printing is
easy.
First, whatever machine you are using needs to be set-up to print to a printer. So, if you are on a Mac at school or a PC or a Mac at home, it needs to be set to print to a printer from its regular programs, such as a word processor or the web browser. Your computer, particularly at school, may actually be set-up to print to more than one printer. For example, as you can see below, my MacBook is set to print to printers all over School District 21. (If you go to File > Print, then, click on the pull-down menu next to where it says Printer, it will show you all of the printers to which the computer is set to print.) **To have your computer set to print to additional printers, in the case of a laptop, contact your school’s iTech teacher. For District staff, including District-wide Support Services staff, you will need to call in to the Help Desk.
Again, any computers in this list can be used to print from within Thin Client.
The next step is quite easy. In Remote Desktop Connection, you need to open the Preferences (RDC > Preferences). On a PC, you will click on the “Options” button in the main RDC dialog box.
In the preferences box, click on the printers tab. This tab is very simple. Check the box so that the remote machine can see the printers connected to your “local” machine, or the machine on which you are actually typing. (In some versions of Remote Desktop Connection as well as in some Linux remote desktop programs, there will simply be a checkbox to connect to “local” printers in the main dialog box.)
Then, when you go to print in Thin Client (File > Print), you can choose from among the same printers that are available on your local machine as you can see in the picture below.
If you look carefully at the list of printers, you will notice that they are the same printers as were available when printing “normally” on my Mac.
First, whatever machine you are using needs to be set-up to print to a printer. So, if you are on a Mac at school or a PC or a Mac at home, it needs to be set to print to a printer from its regular programs, such as a word processor or the web browser. Your computer, particularly at school, may actually be set-up to print to more than one printer. For example, as you can see below, my MacBook is set to print to printers all over School District 21. (If you go to File > Print, then, click on the pull-down menu next to where it says Printer, it will show you all of the printers to which the computer is set to print.) **To have your computer set to print to additional printers, in the case of a laptop, contact your school’s iTech teacher. For District staff, including District-wide Support Services staff, you will need to call in to the Help Desk.
Again, any computers in this list can be used to print from within Thin Client.
The next step is quite easy. In Remote Desktop Connection, you need to open the Preferences (RDC > Preferences). On a PC, you will click on the “Options” button in the main RDC dialog box.
In the preferences box, click on the printers tab. This tab is very simple. Check the box so that the remote machine can see the printers connected to your “local” machine, or the machine on which you are actually typing. (In some versions of Remote Desktop Connection as well as in some Linux remote desktop programs, there will simply be a checkbox to connect to “local” printers in the main dialog box.)
Then, when you go to print in Thin Client (File > Print), you can choose from among the same printers that are available on your local machine as you can see in the picture below.
If you look carefully at the list of printers, you will notice that they are the same printers as were available when printing “normally” on my Mac.
