Chromebooks and printing - arrrgh

[TechLady]

Has anybody else noticed the ability to use supposedly-compatible printers with Chromebooks can be completely random?

I have a Chromebook 15 (biggest model) and it prints to my wireless Brother printer just fine--no issues. My kids meanwhile have some of the smaller Chromebooks, and those won't see the printer at all, and cannot add it as a Google Cloud printer OR old-school printer, even though my bigger Chromebook will happily do so. And theirs are slightly newer models. I spent all evening fighting with a client's Chromebook and the same issue. The printer we got her was promised to be "cloud-ready" and totally able to be used with Chromebooks. She has one of the slightly smaller Chromebooks from Costco.

I'm wondering if it's different Chrome OS builds? This is VERY FRUSTRATING because it's hard to sell clients on these things when this kind of stuff happens. I mean, I can read--it says right on the specs that all these printers are supposed to work, and then when you read the reviews, half of people can get it to work and half can't (and yes I mentally filter out the people that don't sound like they could use a hammer let alone install a printer). I can't see any pattern.

 

[timeshifter]

All I can add is that I feel your pain. My kid's school for the last three years had Chromebooks. He didn't need to print much at home but it was always a pain. I can understand and troubleshoot nearly any Windows or Mac printing issues. Chromebook printing is a complete mystery to me.

 

[Diggs]

This is a huge topic actually. Cloud print? WiFi direct print? Network print? HP print? All are treated differently in the Chrome world and progressively easier. If it's an HP printer, just get the app. If it's anything other than cloud, have you enabled CUPS? Familiarity with Linux printing helps a bit but it's still a cluster f***.

 

[TechLady]

Mostly Acers, and the Google Cloud print on some Chromebooks doesn’t see the same printers that other Chromebooks do. It’s weird.

Where would one enable CUPS?

 

[Markverhyden]

https://www.techrepublic.com/article/how-to-print-to-a-local-network-printer-from-a-chromebook/