Have you ever been on vacation and wanted to print a photo you just took with your iPhone? Or have you ever been out of the office and needed to print an email or attachment from your iPhone? The process is actually pretty straightforward. Here’s how to print from your iPhone.
Before you can print from your iPhone, you must check that your printer supports AirPrint. Also, your iPhone and printer must be on the same WiFi network and within range.
Print with an AirPrint printer
Airprint is Apple’s Wi-Fi printing technology that is use to print from the iPad and iPhone. To use AirPrint, you need to have an AirPrint-compatible printer (there are hundreds of AirPrint printers available) and that printer needs to be connected to the same network as your iPhone (it can be connected to the network via Wi-Fi or via an Ethernet cable hooked into your Wi-Fi router).
In that situation, follow these steps to print directly from an iPhone:
1. Make sure your iPhone is on the same Wi-Fi network as your printer
2. Search for the document, image, or other file you’d like to print
3. Click on the share button
4. After clicking on the share button, scroll down and tap Print
6. Select a printer if you don’t have one already selected
7. Click Print in the top right corner
If you have an AirPrint compatible printer, you’ll see it automatically show up across iOS. Here’s how the process looks in the Files app on iPhone (share button in the top right on iPad Files app):
As long as you see the share button on the content or file you’re looking at you should be able to print directly from your device.
Here’s what it looks like to print from the web via Safari:
As shown above, for Safari and many other apps, the share button may hide as you swipe through content, use the app, etc. Tap the screen or tap the top of your screen to see buttons reappear.
How to Print From an iPhone Without AirPrint
While AirPrint is the simplest way to print wirelessly, you can print from an iPhone without AirPrint too. There are Wi-Fi-enabled printers that work with the iPhone and use their own printing apps. Lots of printer manufacturers offer their own dedicated iPhone apps, including:
- Brother iPrint&Scan
- Canon PRINT Inkjet/SELPHY
- Epson iPrint
- HP Smart
There are also third-party printing apps that support various printers and offer features that AirPrint doesn’t. Some of the most popular third-party printing apps include Print n Share and PrinterShare.
While it’s not possible to include step-by-step instructions for every third-party printing app, the basic concepts mirror the last section. You need a printer available via Wi-Fi or USB. printing is done through the Share icon or with a special printer icon added by the app. When you tap it, choose your options what printer to use, how many copies, double-sided or not, etc.—and then tap Print.
if your printer doesn’t support Wi-Fi and connecting through USB isn’t practical, you’ve got another option:
1. set up a print server on a Mac or PC connected to the printer. As long as you’ve got Wi-Fi, you send the print job from your iPhone to the Mac or PC print server, which then sends the job to the attached printer.