Not sure how to print from your Mac? In this article we will see how to print from a MacBook or iMac. Printing a document allows us to preserve them and there are many people, including myself, who like the feel of paper and find it easier to read important documents on paper than on a screen, even more so if we have to memorize them.
In addition, it can also allow us to take breaks from the screen. If you are new to the ecosystem Apple or it's just your first Mac, you may not know how to print a document. That's why I wrote this article, to show you how to print on a MacBook, iMac, or any other type of Mac with ease.
Setting up printing on a Mac
The first step to printing anything from your Mac is to have a Mac and a printer. The truth is that once your printer is ready, you can print from most applications on your Mac, so your options for this are quite large. You can print a text document from Pages or Word, an article you read in Safari, or a recipe you typed or found in Google Chrome. You can print a PDF from Preview or a spreadsheet from Excel or Numbers.
You can also even print a screenshot taken with your Mac.
How to print anything on a Mac
Once you know what you want to print, printing is very simple. In the document or page you want to print, you will need to click File > Print in the menu bar. Or, press the keyboard shortcuts, pressing Cmd+P in almost any Mac application.
The Print menu will open. You will have to select the printer you want to print from, in the drop-down menu Printer and then, click print. Whatever you want to print should start printing right away!
How to print multiple copies from your Mac
Some printers also act as copiers. If yours doesn't, or you don't want to have to set up that feature, you can print multiple copies of whatever you want to print from the Print menu on your Mac.
- First open the Print menu by clicking File > Print or press Cmd + P on the keyboard.
- Now click on the up arrow next to the Copies box to increase the number of copies you want to print at a time, or type the number of copies you want to make in the box.
- From there, simply click Print to start printing as many copies.
How to print from a Macbook on different paper sizes
Most of the time, your Mac will assume that you're printing on A4-sized printer paper, but if you want to print in any other size or format, you'll need to change some settings on your Mac before hitting Print.
- In the Print menu of Mac-based applications, you will have to press the button Show details on the left side of the menu, below the print preview.
- From here, select the paper size you will be printing on from the drop-down menu Paper size.
- If you don't see "paper size" and instead see a drop-down menu marked Pages, click on it and select Paper handling.
- Mark the Scale box to fit paper size and select the paper size you are printing to from the Destination Paper Size menu that is now available below it.
- Click Print to print the document.
How to pause or cancel printing on a Mac
It's easy to start printing something and suddenly realize you have a big typo. This is also a nightmare if you just started printing 50 copies. Fortunately, you can cancel or pause a print job to correct any errors and start printing again when you're ready.
To cancel or pause whatever you're printing, you'll need to open the printer window. You open this window by clicking on the printer icon that appears in your Dock when you start printing something.
If you don't see the printer icon in your Dock, the print job has probably already finished. You can open the printer window in advance by going to System Preferences > Printers & Scanners, selecting your printer and clicking Open print queue.
To pause a print, click the Pause button in the upper right area of ​​the printer window, or to the right of the print job. Your printer will stop immediately. Now to start printing a paused job again, click the Resume button, which replaces the Pause button at the top right of the printer window.
If you need to make changes to the document you are printing, you will need to cancel that print job and send it back to the printer after making the changes.
To cancel a print job completely, in the printer window, click the X to the right of your print job. Your printer will stop printing completely. To restart a stopped job, you will have to go back to the application you are printing from and press Print again. You will not be able to restart from the printer window.
Conclusion
As always, I hope that this simple tutorial where I explain how to print from a MacBook has been useful to you, and that you have been able to see for yourself how easy it is to print any document from our Mac device. With just a few clicks you can have a document or article in your hands, to read later, or to study as before. Using your pens, rulers or highlighters.
If you use another method to print or use third-party apps, let us know in the comments. Good luck with all your printing jobs!