IT Pro is supported by its audience. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Learn more

How to make a printer shortcut in Windows 10

Quickly checking printer settings and the print tray just got a bit easier with these simple steps

While increasing digitisation of our workloads might have brought the dream of the paperless office closer than ever to reality, the fact remains that printing out physical documents is still something that most of us will need to do every so often.

Having a shortcut to your printer can save time, especially when you need to manage your print queue or hardware settings on a regular basis, and don’t want the hassle of selecting your printer through options menus each and every time you do so. Thankfully, creating a shortcut to your printer in Windows 10 is a relatively smooth and straightforward process.

First, open your control panel by pressing the start button and searching ‘control panel’, then clicking on the control panel application. 

Next, under ‘Hardware and Sound’ select ‘View devices and printers’. Once this is open, right click on your printer of choice and select ‘create shortcut’. You will be prompted with an option to create a desktop shortcut: select ‘yes’.

A right-click dialogue box with options for a printer shortcut

Once this is complete, you should have a shortcut for your printer right on your desktop, from which you can check the print tray and access its settings at any time. In the print tray, one can see all documents currently sent to the printer, as well as cancel documents from printing and reorder the print queue.

If you would like to rename the shortcut, simply right click on the icon and select ‘Rename’, or alternatively click twice on the name it has and then enter your own (not a double click — click on the name to select it, and then a second or two later click again to highlight the text itself).

For ease of access, the printer shortcut can also be added to the taskbar. To do this, simply right click on your newly created printer shortcut and select the option ‘add to taskbar’.

Additionally, the printer shortcut you created does not have to stay on your desktop. The icon, like any program shortcut, can be moved or copied to any folder on your computer. One way to do this is to open windows explorer and navigate to the folder of your choice. 

Next, move Windows Explorer so that the shortcut is not obscured behind it on the desktop (this may require pressing the maximise button to make explorer a smaller window, if you have it in full screen). Then simply drag the shortcut from the desktop into the folder of your choice.

Alternatively, you can click once on the printer shortcut to select it, and use the keyboard shortcut Control + C to add the printer shortcut to the clipboard. Then, navigate to the folder of your choice and press Control + V on your keyboard to paste it into the folder.

Featured Resources

IT best practices for accelerating the journey to carbon neutrality

Considerations and pragmatic solutions for IT executives driving sustainable IT

Free Download

The Total Economic Impact™ of IBM Spectrum Virtualize

Cost savings and business benefits enabled by storage built with IBMSpectrum Virtualize

Free download

Using application migration and modernisation to supercharge business agility and resiliency

Modernisation can propel your digital transformation to the next generation

Free Download

The strategic CFO

Why finance transformation propels business value

Free Download

Recommended

How to reinstall Windows 10 without losing data
Microsoft Windows

How to reinstall Windows 10 without losing data

16 Mar 2023
17 Windows 10 problems and how to fix them
operating systems

17 Windows 10 problems and how to fix them

10 Mar 2023
How to move Windows 10 from an HDD to an SSD
operating systems

How to move Windows 10 from an HDD to an SSD

10 Mar 2023
How to turn on Windows Defender
Software

How to turn on Windows Defender

27 Feb 2023

Most Popular

The big PSTN switch off: What’s happening between now and 2025?
Sponsored

The big PSTN switch off: What’s happening between now and 2025?

13 Mar 2023
Why Amazon is cutting staff from AWS
Cloud

Why Amazon is cutting staff from AWS

21 Mar 2023
Why – and how – IP can be the hero in your digital transformation success story
Sponsored

Why – and how – IP can be the hero in your digital transformation success story

6 Mar 2023