Set Printing Preferences for the Virtual Printing Feature

You can set printing preferences in a remote desktop for the Virtual Printing feature. With the Virtual Printing feature, you can use network or locally attached printers from a remote desktop without having to install additional printer drivers in the remote desktop. For each printer available through this feature, you can set preferences for data compression, print quality, double-sided printing, color, and other settings.

After a printer is added on the local client computer, Horizon Client adds that printer to the list of available printers in the remote desktop. No further configuration is required. If you have administrator privileges, you can install printer drivers on the remote desktop without creating a conflict with the Virtual Printing component.

Important: This feature is not available for the following types of printers.

• USB printers that use the USB redirection feature to connect to a virtual USB port in the remote desktop.

  You must disconnect the USB printer from the remote desktop to use the Virtual Printing feature with it.

• The Windows feature for printing to a file.

  Selecting the Print to file check box in a Print dialog box does not work. Using a printer driver that creates a file does work. For example, you can use a PDF writer to print to a PDF file.

Prerequisites

To use Virtual Printing, a Horizon administrator must enable the Virtual Printing feature in the remote desktop. This task involves enabling the Virtual Printing setup option in the agent installer, and can include setting policies that control Virtual Printing behavior. For information about installing Horizon Agent, see the Setting Up Virtual Desktops in Horizon 7 or Setting Up Published Desktops and Applications in Horizon 7 document. For information about configuring policies, see the Configuring Remote Desktop Features in Horizon 7 document.

To determine whether the Virtual Printing feature is installed in a remote desktop, verify that the C:\Program Files\Common Files\ThinPrint folder exists in the remote desktop file system.

Procedure

1. In the Windows remote desktop, go to Control Panel > Hardware and Sound > Devices and Printers.
2. In the Devices and Printers window, right-click the virtual printer and select Printer properties from the context menu.

   In a single-user virtual machine desktop, each virtual printer appears as <printer_name>. In a published desktop, each virtual printer appears as <printer_name>(s<session_ID>).

3. On the General tab, click Preferences.
4. In the Printing Preferences dialog box, select the different tabs and specify which settings to use.
5. To save your changes, click OK.
6. To use custom paper forms, define the forms on the client system.
   1. Go to Control Panel > Hardware and Sound > Devices and Printers.
   2. Select the printer and click Print server properties at the top of the screen.
   3. On the Forms tab, specify the settings and click Save Form.
   This form is now available in the remote desktop.