How To Print When You’re Away From Your Computer

Whereas once the only way to view an important PDF or email was to sit down at your desk, flick on the computer and load it up on your desktop, the past few years have seen an explosion in the number of devices from which we can access the internet and important files.

Unfortunately, it isn’t always immediately obvious how you can go about doing these files from a mobile device; there’s no word program from which you can just hit print, while most phones won’t feature the drivers required by your printer.

However, that doesn’t mean you can’t print from a mobile device or tablet - far from it in fact. If you ever find yourself needing to print off an important spreadsheet or boarding passes for a flight and you aren’t in the immediate vicinity of your home printer, there are a number of ways you go about it.

Wi-Fi Printer

Wi-fi enabled printers allow you to connect your printer to the same wireless network your computer - or phone or tablet - is connected to and thus send files without the need for a wired connection. It’ll also connect your printer to the web, allowing you to send files directly from other internet-connected devices.

Most wi-fi printers will come with an installation disc that will install all the drivers you need to get started. If you don’t have this disk to hand (if you are using someone else’s printer, for example), you should be able to locate the printer on the wireless network, connect to it and download the drivers you need from the internet.

With wi-fi enabled devices getting cheaper and cheaper, wi-fi will soon become a standard feature of most printers, allowing you to connect to a printer wherever you are (presuming you have permission) and print out whatever you need from a laptop, netbook, phone or tablet.

Cloud Printing

But what if you aren’t in the direct vicinity of a wi-fi enabled printer and but still need to print? Cloud printing offers the solution. Allowing you to connect with your printer via the cloud, cloud printing apps allow you to send a file to your printer remotely so that it’s ready to print when you get back to your printer. Perfect for if you need to print a file before a meeting but are closer to home than the office - or just want to get in your boss’ good books and save on business supplies!

The next few years should also see cloud printing become more prevalent in public places, much in the way many cafes, restaurants and bars now offer wi-fi. With access to cloud printing, you’ll be able to print out whatever you need, wherever you need it. You’ll be pleased to hear that doing this will significantly cut the costs of your home printing supplies too!

There are a number of cloud printing apps available on the market, the most prominent of which are Apple’s AirPrint (specifically for Apple devices and only available on AirPrint enabled printers, a list of which can be found here) and Google Cloud Print, an application that can be accessed from any device through the Chrome Browser, as well as being built into Google devices and certain printers.

Setting up Cloud Printing is relatively easy; in the case of Google Cloud Print, all you need to do is register your connected printer on Cloud Print via your Google account (a full, detailed description of how to do this is available here). Once this is done, you’ll be able to send files to registered printers no matter where you are.

Cloud Print also allows you to share your printer with colleagues, friends and family without the need for installing drivers or any software whatsoever!

Email

If you aren’t quite ready to make the leap into wi-fi or cloud printing, you can also employ a couple of old school methods to print files from a mobile device. Emailing a file as an attachment to yourself from a smartphone in order to print it off your home computer isn’t necessarily the most innovative method of getting a file from mobile to printer, but it does work and doesn’t require much technical expertise to do either!

With more and more of us using mobile devices in order to access important files and photos, printing from these devices is bound to get even easier in the coming years - perhaps even as easy as it is to print from your home or office computer now! Of course, you’ll still need ink and toner cartridges, so get down to your local Cartridge World store to stock up before you start experimenting with mobile printing!

Image Credit: Droid Matters