Help? is there a way i can view my print history?

Question

A few weeks ago I printed a document, but didnt save it. I really need to get this back.. its not in recycle history and i dont want to go resetting back my date/time. is there a simple way i can view every document printed....? thanks

Answer 1

Do you mean you didn't save the printout, didn't save the file on the computer or didn't save either? If you didn't save either, you probably are out of luck although if it's a Word document, there is a slight chance of it being on your computer as a temp file. Run a Search for:

~WR*.tmp

and set date limits so that it only covers the period in which the document was created and edited.



If you saved a copy on the computer and are sure it's there but you don't know where, you can search for files containing text. Make sure you limit the search by telling it what type of document you are searching for because searching by what text is in a document takes a long time. Limit where it searches too, if possible and limit the dates to relevant ones. So for example:

Search My Documents for *.doc containing text rushton created/modified on 17th September, 2008



If you need a copy back on the computer and have the printout, use a scanner to get it back in and Optical Character Recognition to convert it back to text from the picture it will initially be.

Answer 2

No. Not now. You can go in and setup your printer to save your printed documents. (Go to printers and faxes, right click on your printer, select properties, select the advanced tab, on the bottom check keep printed documents.) This will let you print from your queue in the future. Instead of removing documents from the queue it will just list them as printed. This can start taking up a lot of space, and you might want to empty it out periodicly.



However, this only works from the point forward of when you checked it. You can not go into the history. I have never heard of any log that a computer or printer keeps of its previous documents.



Sorry

Answer 3

Unfortunately you can't.



Maybe if you had a print server with a print queue that holds a copy of the printed document.