One example of a communication architecture for direct printing and scanning includes a computing device for generating an electronic image and a page description language for producing a deterministic print file of the electronic image, the deterministic print file being natively viewable in a Portable Document File (PDF) viewer. The architecture also includes a printer for receiving the deterministic print file and for beginning printing the electronic image before the complete deterministic print file is received by the printer. A method for printing a document is also provided.