How to print documents to pictures (gif, bmp etc.) on windows

You can use PDFCreator. It's free and open source. Here's a bit more info on it:

• Create PDFs from any program that is able to print Security: Encrypt PDFs and protect them from being opened, printed etc
• New: Digitally sign your PDFs to ensure that you are the author and the file has not been modified
• New: Create PDF/A files for long term archives
• Send generated files via eMail
• Create more than just PDFs: PNG, JPG, TIFF, BMP, PCX, PS, EPS
• AutoSave files to folders and filenames based on Tags like Username, Computername, Date, Time etc.
• Merge multiple files into one PDF Easy Install: Just say what you want and everything is installed
• Terminal Server: PDFCreator also runs on Terminal Servers without problems
• And the best: PDFCreator is free, even for commercial use! It is Open Source and released under the Terms of the GNU General Public License.

What is the easiest way to capture the printout of a document in a picture (i.e. GIF, BMP etc.)? Making a screenshot does not help

oh yes, it does .... if you have the right software :)

Faststone Capture does exactly what you want:

Capture windows, objects, menus, full screen, rectangular/freehand regions and scrolling windows/web pages

Faststone Capture version 5.3 is free, and so is its portable variant.

Use Print to TIFF (author is Pascal Damman).

1. Add a local printer
2. Use an existing port: FILE: (Print to File)
3. Have Disk...
4. Browse to \Bitmap_Driver\Pack, and pick bitmap.inf
5. If this isn't the first time: Replace the current driver
6. Next, Next, Finish
7. Set b&w color
8. After print rename file extension to tiff

Not explicitly "printing", but this Chrome extension I found to be fantastic for the problem of "rendered webpage -> png". It's created by an independent developer, and in addition to being found on the Chrome Web Store, there's also a MIT-licensed version of it on GitHub, as well as a premium offering.

Full Page Screen Capture

• Chrome Web Store page: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/full-page-screen-capture/fdpohaocaechififmbbbbbknoalclacl
• MIT-licensed GitHub repo: https://github.com/mrcoles/full-page-screen-capture-chrome-extension
• Extension website: https://gofullpage.com/
• Premium version: https://gofullpage.com/premium

Example output:

• Wired article (for archival purposes, this link points to the archive.org capture I made on the same day as the image captured by the extension) when captured by extension)
• Image captured of the article by the extension

Disclaimer: I am not in any affiliated with this extension or author. I just really love software that works well.