Mobility Print quick setup guide for home printing

If you need to print from home - and let’s face it, these days many of us work and study from home - you might be looking for an easy way to set up printing from your devices, be it from your Chromebook, iPhone, Android, Macbook, or Windows laptop.

Maybe you had a solution in Google Cloud Print but uh,oh, that’s now defunct and no longer supported by Google, so now you need an alternative.

This is where PaperCut Mobility Print came to the rescue for me, and it might for you too!

In this guide I share a few tips on how to quickly set up PaperCut Mobility Print at home so you can easily print from your mobile device, work, or personal computer.

Getting started

The great thing about PaperCut Mobility Print is that it just works. All you need to do is:

1. Download and install Mobility Print on your computer. If you have a desktop computer this would be a great place to install Mobility Print on, otherwise any machine that won’t move around or turn off too often will work well. If you have a USB attached printer (rather than a network cable or Wi-Fi, you’ll want to install Mobility Print on the computer that the printer is plugged into). Basically, for Mobility Print to work we need a computer that will ‘talk to your printers’.

2. Configure Mobility Print - just follow the prompts.

3. Get printing!

I’ve got a Mac, an iPhone, and a Wi-Fi printer as my home setup, and my experience was just like that - a few clicks of the mouse and it all worked. Easy - peasy!

Below are a few tips for you as you go through the setup process to make sure it’s as straightforward for you as it was for me.

Tips on selecting the printer discovery method

Once you’ve installed Mobility Print you’ll be asked to select the printer discovery method. This step is essential to ensure that … well, Mobility Print can discover your available printers.

Depending on the printer discovery method you choose and your operating system, you may need to install a client on your computer. But don’t worry, just follow the instructions and everything should work! I say should because, speaking from my own experience, there’s always room for me messing it up somehow!

For a home user, you will most likely go for either of these two options:

• mDNS (Multicast Domain Name System) discovery (selected by default)

• Cloud Print

Here’s when to use each one:

• Use the mDNS option if you want to: print from your phone, Mac or Windows laptop, or Chromebook; share printers across Mac and Windows computers; enable your mobile devices; or get easy Chromebook printing at home,. The mDNS option is selected by default and it works out-of-the-box. This is what I used and I was done in a few minutes!

• To print to your home printer when you are out of the house, select the Cloud Print option (currently available for Windows and Chromebooks only, with macOS off network printing coming soon).

The other two discovery options that you will see are:

• DNS (Domain Name System) discovery - this one is a more advanced option and is generally not recommended for a home user.

• Known-Host discovery - use this one as a troubleshooting alternative if mDNS does not work for whatever reason in your environment.

If you are using a Cloud Print option on a Windows computer

Printer location field

You need to make sure that the printer location field in the print queue settings do not contain any commas, special characters, or IP addresses. To do that:

• Right click Printer Queue on the mobility server and select Properties (found in Control Panel > View devices and printers).

• Remove any commas, special characters or IP addresses from the Location field on the General tab.

(IPP) Internet Printing Protocol feature/role

Ensure that you have installed the (IPP) Internet Printing Protocol feature if it isn’t already:

• Click the Start menu on your Windows desktop

• Search ‘Turn Windows Feature on or off’ in the Windows search box

• Tick Internet Printing Client within Print and Document Services if it is not ticked already

How can I share a new printer?

If you have a new printer you’d like to be able to print from, all you need to do is set it up (like you normally would for the operating system on your computer), then configure it through the System Preferences menu on Mac or through the Control Panel on Windows. Mobility Print will detect and publish your new printers automatically!

How do I set up my devices (phone, laptop etc.) to print?

Check out the Setting up a Mobility Print device page. Click on the device you want to print from for a step-by-step guide, follow the prompts and you’re all set!

Looking for more help on Mobility Print? If you need more technical assistance than what I can provide, do check out the Mobility Print Help Center.

This KB was written by Julie from our People Experience team as part of her Job Swap into Mobility team.