How to Print from Anywhere: Your Guide to Printing on the Go

Being constantly on the go, being able to print from anywhere from your mobile phone, used to be something far from possible.

Today, innovations in secure cloud printing solutions have now made it possible for users to print from anywhere, on the go.

Printers with wireless or online connections can easily communicate beyond a specific person or user group.

Print vendors are also constantly rolling out solutions that use email or cloud-based print servers for sending out print jobs.

Companies such as Apple, Google, HP, and ePRINTit have all developed strong platforms that address the need of printing from anywhere.

Before You Print from Anywhere

How and where you get started in enabling yourself to print from anywhere depends entirely on how complex you want your printing capabilities to be.

There are their main factors when considering public printing:

Printer & Application Compatibility

It is easy to set up mobile printing when you are at home or at the office, but when out and about, your device and public printer need to be able to find each other.

You must consider which mobile applications are vendor agnostic with your mobile device and public location printers.

Print Security

Document security is a big concern with printing on the go. You need to protect your print jobs from prying eyes.

If you are sending a print job that is not immediately accessible, you need a solution that can give you a security code and hold your print job for you until you get to a printer to retrieve it.

Limitations

An ongoing challenge with public printing is the sometimes lack of a reliable connection and an installed driver.

It is always possible that your print job can get lost and you will have to resend it. More commonly, if you are missing a driver, your print jobs may come out funny.

Remotely Printing to Your Local Printer

Local

The easiest way to enable mobile printing is to use the one at home or your office. If it is compatible with a wireless network, you can print to it directly from close by.

You can also remotely send an email document to print through an app if your printer is connected to the internet.

iOS Devices

Your iOS device is compatible with major print vendors like Brother, Canon, Dell, Epson, HP, and Lexmark through Apple AirPrint or their own vendor app.

AirPrint allows you to detect and print from an iOS device to any AirPrint-compatible printer that shares the same wireless network.

Interested in finding out more about printing on the go? Watch this free webinar on integrating secure mobile printing into your environment!

Android Devices

Android devices also enjoy a wide range of wireless apps for direct printing from most printer vendors, as well as the benefits of Google Cloud Print and vendor-specific plugins.

Google Cloud Print

Google Cloud Print is known for being brand-independent and for working with legacy printers as well as newer ones.

To use Google Cloud Print, your printer needs to be connected to a Windows, Mac or Linux PC that is running and connected to the internet.

If your printer has a “Google Cloud Print Ready” function, it can connect directly to the internet, without your computer.

Your device must be running on Android or iOS, using a Gmail account on the Chrome browser. A print option will appear for printing Gmail files that you have uploaded to Google Drive.

You can also share your printer with friends who have the same setup.

Remotely Printing from Anywhere on The Go

ePRINTit’s public printing software lets you print to kiosks at UPS and FedEx office locations, as well as many other hotels, airports, public libraries, and other public printing locations.

Their secure cloud solution offers a downloadable app for iOS and Android devices that lets you easily locate all ePRINTit public print location printers near you and instantly send print jobs to them.

After submitting your print job, you will get back an access code to release your print job when you get to the kiosk printer.

More and more office stores, hotels, libraries, share offices, schools, airports, etc. are adding printers that can be detected by mobile users.

Public printing services, easily simplify the uncertainty of printing when on the go, whether you are at a hotel for a business meeting or at the public library writing a thesis.

There are also many other widely deployed services that allow you to print from anywhere when you are on the go.

Stores like FedEx Office, Office Depot, OfficeMax, Staples, etc. allow you to upload your documents to the Cloud for printing, and then pick up your print job in person at the store.

The only drawback is that they are brand specific, so you can only use their brand and nearby stores, if any, to print.

Public mobile printing is now being embraced by vendors more than ever before.

It is only a matter of time before it will feel natural to be able to print to any printer from anywhere, directly from your personal device.

Check out this free whitepaper on achieving anywhere, any device printing!