Setup a Print Server using Raspberry Pi & CUPS: Part 3

This is the continuation of the Part 2 of the article, where we covered the server setup on our Raspberry Pi. If you have not setup your Pi or the printing service CUPS, I recommend you to follow Part 1 and Part 2 first.

This is the last and easiest part where we will send print commands to our printer wirelessly. You should have CUPS setup on your Pi, and should be able to print a test page from CUPS Web Interface. The device from which you want to print should be connected to the same network as your Pi.

Windows

You need to ensure that samba is installed and configured on your Pi. We configured samba in part 2 of this article.

To add a printer, Go to Settings → Devices → Printers & Scanners → Click “Add a printer or scanner”. It will automatically discover the network printer and you can click “Add Device” to add it.

If that doesn’t work for you, click on “The printer that I want isn’t listed” → “Select a shared printer by name”, and enter the address of your printer

http://ip_address_of_raspberry_pi:port/printers/queue_name

Here queue_name is the same as printer’s Queue Name in CUPS web interface in Printers tab. In my case it is:

http://192.168.0.190:631/printers/m1136

Linux

On a GNOME desktop, you can add the network printer from the GNOME Settings → Devices and Printers → Unlock Panel → Add. On other desktop environments, the process would be somewhat similar.

It will automatically discover the network printer and add it. If that doesn’t work for you, you may need to add the IP address of your Raspberry Pi to manually add the printer.

MacOS

Open System Preferences → Printers & Scanners.

Click on + at the bottom. Mac will automatically detect the printer. Select and click Add.

Android

On Android Oreo and above, the system has a Default Print Service. For older versions, you need to download CUPS Printing plugin. After that you need to go to Settings → Connected Devices → Connection Preferences → Printing and enable Android CUPS Print plugin. For Oreo and above, you have an option to enable the Default Print Service.

To print a document or a media, open it in an app that supports printing. Go to Options→ Print → Select your Printer → Press Print button.