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Nobody wants to deal with transferring files to their laptop just to print one document. How to Print From your phone. used to be this whole complicated mess, but honestly? It’s gotten way easier. Your phone probably already knows how to talk to printers – you just haven’t figured out which buttons to mash yet.
The whole thing works because printers and phones can chat over WiFi now. It’s like magic, except not really magic at all. Just technology that finally works the way it should have from the beginning.
Most people mess this up because they overthink it. The printer has to be on the same internet as your phone. That’s literally it. Well, mostly it anyway.
Getting Your Devices to Play Nice Together
Wireless printing sounds complicated but it’s basically just your phone yelling “HEY PRINTER, PRINT THIS THING” across your WiFi network. The printer hears it and goes “OKAY SURE” and then paper comes out with your stuff on it.
Different phones handle this differently though. Apple decided to make their own system because of course they did. Android phones… well, Android is Android. Sometimes it works perfectly, sometimes you want to throw your phone out the window.
How to Print From Your Phone When You’ve Got an iPhone
Apple calls their printing thing AirPrint. Sounds all fancy and technical but it’s just printing without wires. When you want to print something – a photo, email, whatever – you tap that share button. You know the one. Looks like a square with an arrow trying to escape.
Scroll through all those sharing options until you see “Print.” Tap it. Your phone will spend a few seconds thinking about life, then show you a list of printers it found. Pick yours. Choose how many copies you want. Press the blue Print button.
Boom. Done. No apps, no setup wizards, no pulling your hair out.
HP makes printers that work really well with iPhones. Canon and Epson usually cooperate too, though sometimes they get moody for no reason.
How to Print From Your Phone With Android Devices (Warning: May Cause Mild Frustration)
Android printing is like a box of chocolates – you never know what you’re gonna get. Samsung phones do it one way, Google phones do it another way, and cheap phones from brands you’ve never heard of do whatever they feel like doing.
The good news? Most Android phones come with basic printing built in. Go to Settings, hunt around for something called “Printing” or “Connected Devices.” Enable whatever printing service is hiding in there. Your phone will search for printers whenever you try to print something.
Sometimes this works great. Sometimes it doesn’t work at all and you question your life choices.
When Learning How to Print From Your Phone Gets Complicated
Third-party apps exist for when the default options decide to take a vacation. These actually work most of the time:
PrinterShare costs a few bucks but it’ll print to pretty much any printer made in the last decade. Even those ancient ones that should probably be in a museum by now.
HP Smart works if you bought an HP printer. Does printing, scanning, tells you when you’re out of ink. Pretty useful actually.
Canon PRINT is Canon’s version of the same thing. Works fine if you like Canon printers and don’t mind another app cluttering up your phone.
Maximizing Network when Printing from Your Phone
Both your phone and printer need to use the same WiFi network. This sounds obvious until you remember that guest networks exist and they hate talking to other devices. Your printer might be on the main network while your phone connected to the guest network automatically.
Check this first before you start cursing at your printer. Save yourself some time and frustration.
Got an old printer without WiFi? Buy a wireless print server. Plugs into your printer’s USB port and gives it WiFi powers. Cost effective and beats buying a whole new printer.
Printer not showing up? Turn everything off, count to ten, turn it back on. This fixes about 80% of printing problems. Technology is weird like that.
Prints look terrible? Check your ink levels or toner situation. Also make sure you’re not trying to print photos on regular paper or vice versa. Printers are picky about these things.
Learning How to Print From Your Phone takes some patience but once you get it working, you’ll wonder why you ever bothered with computers for simple printing tasks. The whole process becomes pretty straightforward after you do it successfully a couple times.