Learn how to add and work with printers on the Mac.
In this lesson for the Mac, I look at the Printer Preference Pane. This is where you add and manage your printers you connect to your Mac, including managing the queues and viewing the ink supply levels for specific printers. You can also set the default printer. See how to manage your printers on the Mac in this lesson.
Video Transcript (video also has closed captions):
Introduction: In this video, we’re going to take a look at where we add our printers and scanners on the Mac, as well as the different preferences or settings we have for printers and scanners. Let’s go to my Mac. Now, to add a printer, all you have to do is plug it in. Usually, the Mac will find it, but if you need to discover the printer, or you want to open up the print queue, what you need to do is you need to go to System Preferences. Select it, and then what you do is you go over to Printers and Scanners. This is where you’re going to find all of your different printers and scanners.
Up at the top, you’re going to see it’s divided into two. We have two tabs, Print and Scan. When you first open it up, it goes over to print; we can see both of my printers here. If I want to open up the print queue, I select the printer that I want. I have my HP LaserJet selected. From there, I go and click Open Print Queue, and it’s going to open up a new window. I can go and see the print queue. I want to see the settings for my printer, for this specific printer I click on Settings. This is a laser printer. Now, I click on Supply Levels. I can see the supply level for my printer. I’m going to cancel, and I’m going to close this.
If I want to see the supply levels from my InkJet, I click on my Officejet, and then I would open up print queue. Then, I could go over to my Settings. I can also see the options and supplies by clicking on this button here. This is the same thing as going over to your print queue and clicking on Settings. So, we can get to this from two different areas. I’m going to go back and select my LaserJet. If I have other Macs and I want to share the printer, what I can do is I can share this printer on my network. Then, what it will use is, it will use this Mac as the print queue, and then it will be able to print to my printer.
This is generally for older printers. Most printers are now Wi-Fi compatible, and you do not need to share it. If you have an older printer, you may need to select this. Again, in most cases, you won’t have to select this. Below there, we have our default printer and default paper size. Right now, to set for the Last Printer Used. What I like to do is I want to use my LaserJet. I very seldom use my InkJet. Instead of the Last Printer Used, what I’m going to do is I’m going to select my LaserJet. Now, by default, what it’s going to do is it’s going to print to my LaserJet. Even if I go and print something to my InkJet, the next time I go and Print, it will print to the LaserJet. I can also set my default paper size.
Now, let’s go and print. I’m going to open up Safari here. Let’s go over to Apple. Then, what I do is I go up to File, and then you go over to Print. My favorite way of doing it is, of course, using a keyboard shortcut, Command P. Just hit Command P if you’re in Calendar, it’ll print the Calendar. If you’re in your Notes, command P will print the Notes. When I select this, we get our print dialog box that drops down, and then from here, you can see it went to my LaserJet because I set it up for default that way. If I did want to print this to my InkJet, I can go and select my InkJet.
I also have presets. Now, the LaserJet does not have a lot of presets. When I select this, I can select Black and White. If I were to go over to my InkJet, from here, I can go and select Black and White or Color. Depending on which printer you have, you’re going to have different options. I can select how many copies, which pages, and then if I want to preview the pages, I can go and click on these arrows to the left or right to preview the pages.
Once I’m finished with all my settings, I click on Print. We do have more details when we’re printing. I’m going to click on Show Details. From here, I can also set the Orientation, as well as the Scale. Then, I can print backgrounds and headers and footers, so we do have more details. If you want to go back to the more simple page, you click on Hide Details, and then you click on Print. If you want to save it as a PDF and bypass printing it, you can also click on PDF and then save it as a PDF.
Let’s take a look at scanning. I’m going to cancel this, and now I’m going to close this. Now, what we need to do is we need to go over to Scan here. Both of my printers have scanners in them. To open up the scanner, you click on Open Scanner. We’re going to get a different app that opens up. I’m going to move the window over here. Then, if I want to scan, all I have to do is click on Scan, and it will scan it. Where will it scan it to? My Pictures folder.
If I want to see more details, I click on Show Details, and now I have more options. I can go and name it, set the format, as well as set the resolution. To go back to your more simplified scanner settings, you click on Hide Details. Now, you can go and click on Scan. Again, depending on which scanner you have, you may have different options.
That’s how we print and scan on the Mac.