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How Do You Print a Document at a Hotel's 'Business Center'?

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Old Jun 17, 2016, 2:51 pm
  #1  
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How Do You Print a Document at a Hotel's 'Business Center'?

Recently I wanted to print a short document (actually, a page of an email, not a separate attachment) at a hotel 'business center', something I've never done before. I had the document on a Windows laptop.

The business center consisted of a desktop computer, a monitor and a printer (not the same brand of printer that I own at home).

I decided that I didn't really need to print the document, because I wasn't sure the best way to get that done.

How should I have gone about printing the document?
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Old Jun 17, 2016, 3:05 pm
  #2  
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Can you access the e-mail account online? If so, log into the e-mail account on the hotel business center computer then print out the e-mail.

Otherwise, you can print the e-mail on your laptop into PDF form, e-mail it to (perhaps) a personal web-based e-mail account, then access that e-mail account on the hotel business center computer.
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Old Jun 17, 2016, 3:37 pm
  #3  
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Thank you pseudoswede

I think your second idea may be the better idea...create a junk GMail account at Google with a never-to-be-used-again password, forward the email to that junk account, then log into that GMail account on the perhaps-malware-infested hotel PC and print out the page.

Clumsy and time-consuming, but sounds like it will work.
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Old Jun 17, 2016, 3:41 pm
  #4  
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USB thumb drive. Make sure to virus scan when you reuse it.
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Old Jun 17, 2016, 3:43 pm
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Originally Posted by Middle_Seat
Thank you pseudoswede

I think your second idea may be the better idea...create a junk GMail account at Google with a never-to-be-used-again password, forward the email to that junk account, then log into that GMail account on the perhaps-malware-infested hotel PC and print out the page.

Clumsy and time-consuming, but sounds like it will work.
If you just plan on using it once, then this will probably work better for you... http://10minutemail.com/10MinuteMail/index.html
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Old Jun 17, 2016, 4:42 pm
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10minutemail.com looks great for sending standard emails, but it does not seem to support attachments or images in emails.

For individual files, a flash drive may be best...if you trust your malware scanner to do a thorough scan of the drive when you re-insert it into your own computer.
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Old Jun 17, 2016, 5:47 pm
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A lot of the printers I find have the wireless open, and I just print from my iphone or ipad.

Or I use a junk email account and send to that.
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Old Jun 18, 2016, 3:21 am
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usually you can email a file to the business center (like a pdf file for example) and ask them to print it for you. That's usually the easiest way.

Just ask the business center.

-David
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Old Jun 18, 2016, 9:23 am
  #9  
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I have an eFax account and I sometimes will fax something short to myself and then just pick up at the front desk.
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Old Jun 18, 2016, 10:14 am
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Originally Posted by nmenaker
A lot of the printers I find have the wireless open, and I just print from my iphone or ipad.

Or I use a junk email account and send to that.
A lot of printers now have front-panel USB ports and include the ability to print a wide variety of document and file types directly from a thumb drive. I've used this feature at multiple hotels.
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Old Jun 18, 2016, 4:36 pm
  #11  
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All good ideas! Thank you.
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Old Jun 18, 2016, 4:41 pm
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Stayed at a Hampton Inn in NC that used a drop email address for printing. Of course I didn't need it that time. Wish others made it as easy.

I've also ran into one PC that didn't have USB ports accessible (I think the base was locked in the desk or behind the wall) but did have a CF slot in the monitor so used that to print out a document.
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Old Jun 18, 2016, 5:20 pm
  #13  
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All depends on what you mean by "business center." A decent one will have some facility which allows you to email a document to a utility which returns you a password and sends the document to a printer. You go to the printer, enter the password and the document prints while you stand there.

Depending on where you are and the nature of the document, I am wary of sending anything through any public system, password or not.
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Old Jun 18, 2016, 9:42 pm
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If you have Internet access from the laptop then https://file.pizza/ is all you need. Share the file on the laptop, download it from the desktop, done.
Free peer-to-peer file transfers in your browser. We never store anything.
The file is accessible only as long as your browser tab is opened and even then you need a long, hard to guess but easy to type URL.
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Old Jun 19, 2016, 8:47 am
  #15  
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Thank you for the file.pizza link chx1975, it's a very clever and potentially useful website.

It's pretty sensitive...if you reload the page the file is no longer shared. That's not a problem, just something to know.
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