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Printing on the road can be difficult if you are not prepared. In this article I intend to briefly survey the various ways one can print a document while on the road. I don’t claim this article to be exhaustive, I only hope to present the reader with a few ideas of what is possible.

Pay to be Portable

Conventional wisdom would say if you want to print on the road, you need to purchase a portable printer to take with you. That way, you can print in your hotel room, the airport, or anywhere else you might find yourself.

If you’re looking for a portable printer, the first question is what to buy. Fortunately, there are only a few options to choose from, but there are three main categories that should be covered before a serious decision can be made.

The InkJet-Set

Canon has been the major player in this area for several years with two older mobile models--the BJC-55 and BJC-85. Both of these Canon models have been described as “black Saran Wrap boxes,” although they are bigger and heavier than that. You can still purchase both of these printers but I wouldn’t recommend it since Canon has released the updated i70. The i70 sells for around $250 and weighs around 4 pounds. It is 12.4 inches wide by 6.9 inches deep and 2 inches high.

Another model to consider is the HP DeskJet 450cbi mobile printer. It is slightly heavier and larger than the Canon i70 (4.6 lbs.; 13.3” x 3.2” x 6.5”), but that’s not enough of a reason to rule it out. I had a chance to work with the HP 450cbi and became very impressed with its capabilities. I couldn’t necessarily say that I would lug it around with me everywhere I go, but if I did need a printer by my side when I’m out of the office, this would be my choice.

For starters, the HP DeskJet 450cbi is a nice compact size. The paper holding tray flips up from the top and can hold up to 45 sheets. The tray also has an innovative flip down adapter to securely hold smaller media like envelopes or even photo paper. And that’s the great thing about a portable printer like the HP 450cbi--not only can it ably handle regular documents, but it can double as an above-average photo printer. I was amazed at the quality of the print jobs I shot out of the printer. There were some good looking pictures and documents that came out of that little package.

The HP 450cbi model comes with a small, tube-like battery that snaps into a slot on the back of the printer. It didn’t take long for the battery to charge up fully and I was carrying it around with me. I would never leave home without the charging cord for the 450cbi, but it sure is nice to know that I could use the device without the cord if I needed a quick printout and didn’t want to fuss with plugging it in.

And connectivity to your computer is a cinch. I would venture to call the HP 450cbi a “wireless” device because with the battery, it needs no electrical cord, and it will accept print jobs from your laptop via infrared (or even Bluetooth if you purchase the 450wbt model). Once I inserted the print cartridges and installed the PC software, I simply lined up my laptop with the printer and hit the Print button. The signal was sent via the infrared port and my printout appeared seconds later.

If you prefer, you can also connect your laptop to the 450cbi via the included parallel port cable or a USB cable (which is not included). In addition, the 450cbi also has a Compact Flash card slot in the back. This means you can literally take a Compact Flash card out of your digital camera and pop it directly into the printer to print your photos. The 450cbi gets very high marks for all the connectivity options it offers.

And you aren’t limited to just printing from your laptop. Since most PDAs have an infrared port, you can send print jobs from your Palm or Pocket PC device. To test out my Dell Axim X5, I downloaded and installed the trial version of PrintPocketCE from Field Software Products. It worked like a charm. I printed a document out from the Dell Pocket PC and there was no way you could tell it came from a PDA instead of a full-fledged computer.

For you Palm aficionados, the CD that accompanies the HP 450cbi includes a full version of BtPrint Pro from IS/Complete. I installed this software on my Handspring Treo 600 and was able to beam print jobs right from my Palm.

Other Printer Options

There are several other printers that can come in handy for special purposes. For starters, there are portable printers like the Pentax PocketJet II and the Brother MPrint MW-100 “thermal” printers. They print on special paper, just like the old fax machines. They do not accept regular letter-sized paper nor could they print on such. You must have a supply of special thermal paper which may be a specific size as in the case of the Brother MPrint.

On the other hand, thermal printers can be extremely small. The Brother MPrint is almost the size of a Palm PDA. And while that is terrific for portability, I wouldn’t recommend these printers for general print jobs. They are best suited for people who need quick and dirty printouts out in the field (like receipts or on-the-fly reports).

Next come the portable photo printers like the Canon CP-300 or the Olympus P-400. These printers are specifically designed to produce high-resolution color photographs from your digital pictures. They are smaller than normal desktop printers since they focus on printing 4x6 photos. They are not designed to print documents, and for that reason, would be too fancy (and more expensive) to purchase for general printing needs.

Going Printerless

Rather than tote your own portable printer, there are a number of good options to consider. One of my road tricks is simply take my print jobs down to the hotel business center or a nearby Kinko’s. This works great as long as you have the right media.

The default portable method for many years for moving files has been the floppy disk. In recent years, the floppy has been replaced by USB memory drives (often called flash or thumb drives) such as those from Kanguru and SanDisk (and many others). Just about every computer today is going to have a USB port. USB memory drives are just a more efficient method of transporting your documents, and they can hold much more than floppies. Most of the USB memory devices don’t even need drivers (as long as you’re using Windows 2000 and above) so you can plug and play wherever you go.

The plug and play feature is very important because you don’t have to worry about toting extra drivers around with you. The biggest problem I face when using a USB memory key is trying to find the USB slot on a computer that I’m not familiar with. Sometimes they’re way in the back of the PC, which hasn’t seen light for many months. Older PCs may not have one at all.

There are other ways to print remotely, even if you don’t have a USB memory device. My own firm uses Citrix as our remote access service. I can go to any computer that’s connected to the Internet and access all of my firm applications in real-time. When I launch the Citrix client to connect to my firm applications, it looks for the default printer on the machine that I’m using and “maps” to it. When I’m inside Citrix and send a job to be printed, the document comes out of the default printer of the machine where I’m sitting.

Similarly, some of you may use an incredible service called GoToMyPC.com which can operate in sort of the same way. When you’re on the road and need to access your home or office PC, you can simply go to GoToMyPC.com and log in on any computer that is connected to the Internet. If the computer you’re using has a printer attached to it, you can use a small tool that will enable GoToMyPC.com to use that as the printer. It’s very simple to set up.

Places like Kinko’s can now even take your orders online. You can go to Kinkos.com, upload your document, and arrange to have it delivered or go pick it up. It doesn’t get much easier than that, although this service is probably for those bigger jobs when you need more than just one copy or printout.

The sky’s the limit when it comes to portable printing. I’ve heard of people that need a printout when they are working late at night at a hotel. Instead of trying to break in to the business center, they simply dial the hotel's fax number and send their document there. Minutes later a helpful bell clerk delivers it to your room for only a small tip.