When anyone mentions printing, my advice is always the same: print less. Save the trees, and save the information in a more flexible format, such as online.

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My pessimism notwithstanding, users continue to print and some vendor innovations make printing easier. One of those is a company in Toronto named Qnetix, part of the large Canadian company Charon Systems, Inc. Their new UniPrint product (uniprint.net) takes the hassle out of remote printing and client/printer driver mismatches.

Relying on Windows Terminal Server, and now a second version that uses Citrix MetaFrame, UniPrint puts a driver on the client which converts print output to PDF files. This eliminates the need for the client to have a printer driver to match the printer at the end of the line. The server module handles all the print driver matching between the server and the printer, leaving the user out of the mix entirely. Any printer controlled by the server will play along.

This lead me to a head-smacking "why didn't I think of that" moment. I've been testing third-party products which create PDF files and never thought about the value of sending those files to the printer rather than the real document.

You need a Windows or Citrix server in the mix, but you probably have that. You need to put the client software on each computer or add the Gateway Module to support thin clients. But as long as your server and your printer(s) agree, your clients can print without a problem. Pricing starts at $995 per server.

Let's build off this: what if Adobe convinced printer manufacturers to support PDF files natively on printers, much like printers support some low-level ASCII text. This may do the same thing as UniPrint gives us, but without the need for the server in the middle.

Great idea or not, don't hold your breath. If Microsoft hasn't been able to force printer vendors to make the DOC file format the default, printer makers probably won't fall in line for the PDF idea, either. And Adobe doesn't have the clout to push this on anyone, either, although Adobe PDF support seems to be growing again.

Until the folks at Adobe can convince printer makers to get on board, your best chance to ease printing woes is UniPrint from Qnetix. But that's a pretty good option.