Smart ways to use your wireless printer

Every office and classroom needs a printer – and, as times change, and more of us choose to work and study remotely, every home needs one too.

One of the best things about working from home is that you can work in whatever room suits your mood. Adding a wireless and cloud-enabled printer to the mix means you don't need to be sat next to your printer – you can print from anywhere you like. So, if you want to work on the sofa in the morning and move out to the garden for some afternoon sunshine, you can. Send your documents to print whenever you're ready and then pick them up when you need them.

Canon wireless printers are easy to set up and easy to use. With Wi-Fi connectivity and apps such as the Canon PRINT app, you can control your printer functions from your smartphone or tablet – more on that later. Setting up is straightforward, using the smartphone app or Canon's online support guide – just find your printer's model number and follow the step-by-step guide.

Home life is woven together by Wi-Fi nowadays. Individuals, couples and families tend to rely on an assortment of computers, laptops, tablets and smartphones on a daily basis. Add a Canon printer to your home Wi-Fi network and you can print wirelessly from all of these devices and more, from anywhere around the home. What's more, using Canon's apps, you can print or scan remotely from further afield, wherever you have a Wi-Fi connection, for example printing documents or photos on your home printer while you're on the train or in a coffee shop.

As well as being useful for producing letters and labels for day-to-day business, a printer can help you be more productive and effective. Reading a printout means you're much less likely to be distracted by on-screen notifications or incoming emails. It's also worth remembering that your eyes need regular breaks from the screen.

The Wi-Fi-enabled PIXMA G3470 Series (see video above) is ideal for the busy smart home, combining printing, scanning and photocopying with high-capacity ink tanks that deliver up to 6,000 mono and 7,700 colour documents.¹ Canon's MegaTank system makes refilling easy too, with simple, mess-free and highly cost-effective ink bottles. The PIXMA G4470 adds an auto document feeder for fuss-free multi-page scanning and photocopying.

It's not just professionals who benefit from having a wireless printer at home. PIXMA Cloud Link also supports Google Classroom, which means it's useful for school and college students. Google Classroom is designed to assist communication between teachers and students. Using PIXMA Cloud Link with Google Classroom means students can print lists of the classes they're taking, and print assignments directly from the printer screen or from their smart device via the Canon PRINT app. An additional benefit for teachers is that they can easily print class rosters to show the members of a selected class.

For the ultimate in simplicity, versatility, efficiency and creativity, Canon offers a wide range of free-of-charge apps and software to enhance the wireless printing experience. With the Canon PRINT app, you can print, copy and scan wirelessly from smart devices, as well as alter print settings, check ink levels and run maintenance routines.

As we've seen, Canon's apps make it easy to print directly from your phone to a wireless printer. When you're working from home or off-site, using the Canon PRINT app with PIXMA Cloud Link enables you to wirelessly link to an office printer, so you can share documents with other members of staff. You can also scan documents remotely using your smartphone's camera and print them back at the office, or scan documents using the printer and send them to a smartphone. It works both ways.

Adding a creative flourish, the Easy-PhotoPrint Editor app gives you the option of turning your digital photos into stylish prints and unique gifts, with templates for calendars, cards, posters and more.

There's also the PosterArtist online service for creating your own posters, banners and flyers. The MAXIFY GX3040 and MAXIFY GX4040 MegaTank printers are particularly good for this, with a rear flat input tray that facilitates the creation of banners up to 1.2m in length and on paperboard media up to 0.7mm thick.

For Windows computers, Easy-Layout Editor is a useful expansion module for printer drivers that gives you an on-screen preview for laying out and printing multiple images. Or even without downloading an app, Canon printers that are compatible with Chromebooks, Apple AirPrint and Mopria^® for Android enable you to simply connect and print wirelessly via the built-in printing protocol of your smartphone or tablet.

Ultimately, Canon's Wi-Fi-enabled printers and range of apps are engineered to work together seamlessly. From the physical control panels of the printers to the features and interfaces of the apps, everything is designed to be easy and intuitive to use, while giving you the freedom to complete all sorts of scanning and printing tasks as quickly and effortlessly as possible. With Canon in your corner, wireless printing is as easy as it gets.


Written by Angela Nicholson and Matthew Richards