Print from your Smart Phone or Tablet

How to Print from your Smart Phone or Tablet

All of us agree that smartphones and tablets have invaded our lives in a big way. Nowadays smartphones have become faster and equally efficient as laptops and PC and tablets are slowly replacing the PCs and Laptops in a world where form factor and speed is essential.

There are umpteen improvements in day-to-day work in the form of enhanced software and intelligent software that decides what you really need. However one thing that I found missing was the ability to print from a laptop or smartphone and it took some time for technology to catch up.

The usual way to connect to a printer is via a USB cable connection after installing the drivers and using software that came pre-installed on the device.
If it is not possible, or if you prefer to print wirelessly, you’ll probably need to download an app written just for that purpose. That is advancement for you!

Note: Some wireless printer manufacturers include an app for printing wirelessly from a mobile device on their printers’ installation CDs. If that is missing you can try to download the app available as a free download directly from the printer manufacturer's website (your printer’s user manual should give you the Website URL).

The big question is - what to do if your Printer is not Wireless enabled?

You are in luck! What you need is a PC with Google Chrome installed with your user account and an Android Phone (from where you need to print something) with a free app for your Android device.

This method involves a free service from Google called 'Cloud Print'. 

First, configure the PC that has a printer attached.

1. In your Chrome Browser, sign in to your Google account (by clicking the menu button in the top-right corner).
2. Go to Chrome Settings.
3. At the bottom of the Settings page, click on 'Show advanced settings'.
4. Scroll to the section labelled 'Google Cloud Print' and click the button 'Add printers'.
5. A confirmation page will open. Click 'Add printer(s)'.
6. A Cloud Print web page will open where you can configure many options in your printer settings.
7. After you have installed a printer you can now use the 'manage printer' option that you will see here.

Next, set up the Android device that you want to print from.

1. Download and install one of the free Cloud Print apps. I tried the newly released Google Cloud Print app such as CloudPrint Plus or CloudPrint
2. Open the Cloud Print app and it should show the printer(s) that you set up on your PC.

You should now be able to print from any apps that allow sharing. Open a web page or document you want to print in any app, then click the Share button. Share the document to the Cloud Print app.

You’ll be able to send the file to the printer.  Because Cloud Print works over the Internet, you can use this feature to connect to a printer at your home or office or anywhere!

Note that you must be using the same Google account in Chrome and with the Cloud Print app after which your printer will be seen in the app. In case you did not know, the PC and/or the printer do not have to be switched on when you send the print command. The print job will be queued at Google Cloud Print until you turn the PC and printer on.

You can check what print jobs are waiting by clicking the Chrome “Manage printers” button mentioned above in step 7. If you do not want your printer to always be connected to the Internet, simply click the "Disconnect printers" button mentioned in step 8 above.

That is it! I hope you liked this nifty tip. Let me know if it worked for you or if you have a better suggestion. If this article helped you - please share it around socially!