Sometimes you may find yourself needing to print of a list of the files that are in a folder, and if you have lots of files, it’s not much fun going through them all and typing each one out in a word document. So instead you can use this nifty little feature to do it automatically for you, it takes a little time to set up but once you’ve done that it’s all plain sailing.
Now there is two different options you can take here.
The first is a once off solution for printing a list of a folders contents. The second is a more permanent feature which adds an option to do it to the right click context menu.
I’ll go through the first solution first. If your handy with a bit of command line this shouldn’t be a problem.
1. The first thing you want to do is open up command prompt as the administrator, then navigate to the folder/directory you want a file listing of, then enter this command:
dir> contents.txt
2. This will then add a contexts.txt file to the directory you were getting a file listing of, so simply open it up and hit print and your done.
Credit:Lifehacker
Now the second method requires a bit more work.
1. First off we need to create a Printdir.bat file
To do this we need to open up notepad, and paste in the following text
@echo off
dir %1 /-p /o:gn > "%temp%Listing"
start /w notepad /p "%temp%Listing"
del "%temp%Listing"
exit
Then you want to save it as Printdir.bat to the directory that you installed Windows to – generally C:Windows, but make sure you have administrative permissions.
2. At this point if you were following Microsoft’s guide you would be messing around with the registry and inexperienced users could do some damage.
But thankfully I’ve an easier method for you.
3. Go to start -> run and type in %APPDATA%MicrosoftWindowsSendTo
4. In this folder then we are going to right click and create a shortcut
and enter %windir%Printdir.bat for the location of the file.
5. Hit next and enter Print Directory Listing as the name for the shortcut and your done!
Now simply right click on the folder you want to print the directory off, go to Send To and then select Print Directory Listing and away you go!
Thanks to WatchingTheNet for the alternative method
If you add /B it will only list the file names, which is all I need most times.
Thanks
I have a question i use a tool called Print Directory to print list of file in a drive is it ok to use tool.
Yep, there’s nothing to worry about
Only problem I have is that I can’t find the output. It opens a notepad session I briefly see the data there and then it disappears, and I can’t find it! Any help would be appreciated as this would be REALLY useful!
Hoffy,
just remove the “/P” from the 3rd line in the bat file.
then it will open the notepad, and stay open until you close it.
copy and paste what you need. once you close notepad, it deletes the temp file.
good luck
Beautiful Just what I needed thank you very much.
Thanks. Worked Great. I tried the same file using the microsoft method i.e editing the registry. When I attempt to use it I get a pop up saying the file has no program associated. Could anyone explain why their method doesn’t work? Thanks
Anthony
Anthony – The Microsoft method has a typo. Line 5 says “Enter a command for the name of the new subkey” should say “Type the word ‘Command’ as the name of the new subkey”.