Mobile printing
Mobile printing from any phone or laptop. No drivers, no app.
Commontray is a mobile printing solution that runs in the browser people already have. They open the print page, choose a PDF, photo or Office file, see every page and the price, and print to your office printer. Nothing to install on their phone, and nothing for you to install on their laptop.
How it works
Print from a phone in four taps.
Commontray runs on one computer at your site, or on the Commontray Box, and talks to the printers. Everyone else just needs a browser.
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Open the print page
Scan the QR code on the printer, or open the bookmark. The printer is already chosen.
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Choose a file
A PDF, a photo, or a Word, Excel or PowerPoint file. Office files are turned into pages on the spot.
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Check the pages
Every page appears as a thumbnail, with color pages marked. Pick A4 or Letter, color or black & white, one or two sides, and copies.
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Print
See the price, confirm, and follow the job until the printer says it’s done. Or let it wait for release.
Print without drivers, on any device.
Printer drivers are why office printing breaks: the wrong version, a missing model, a laptop that isn’t allowed to install anything. Commontray takes them out of the picture. It sends each job to the printer itself, over the same driverless standard (IPP Everywhere) that most printers have supported for years.
For people printing, that means:
- No driver to find, download or install.
- No app to download, and no account in a printer maker’s cloud.
- No “add printer” wizard, and no admin rights on their laptop.
And for you: one place where printers are added, once, on the Commontray admin page. More on this in our guide to driverless printing.
- iPhone and AndroidSafari, Chrome, Samsung Internet, Firefox.
- Mac, Windows, LinuxAny modern browser. No admin rights needed.
- Tablets and ChromebooksSame page, bigger thumbnails.
- Any mail appOr email the file and release it later.
BYOD printing that keeps people off your printers.
Bring-your-own-device printing usually means letting every member’s and visitor’s laptop talk to your printers. With Commontray, people talk to a web page and only Commontray talks to the printers. You choose who can print, and every page has a name against it.
- Guest printing without guest setup. A visitor signs in on the print page, prints, and leaves. Their laptop never sees the printer.
- One sign-in, then just print. People stay signed in on their phone, so the next print is a file and a tap away.
- Their own jobs only. People see their recent prints and waiting documents, never anyone else’s.
- Printers stay private. Pair it with the Commontray Box printer port and the printers have no address on the shared network at all.
The details
What makes printing from a phone feel finished.
Pages before price
Every page is shown before anyone pays, so the blank last page or the 40-page attachment is spotted before it prints.
Color, page by page
Pages with color are marked. In a color job, the black & white pages cost the black & white price. See charging.
A4 and Letter
Pages are fitted and turned to match the paper. Photos get a small margin and the phone’s rotation is applied.
Follow the job
People watch their job go from queued to printing to done, and see a printer problem before they pay, not after.
Print from anywhere
Turn on a secure web address and people can send from home or the train, then release when they arrive. No port forwarding.
Office files, safely
Word and Excel files are converted with their macros and links switched off, then deleted as soon as the job ends.
Questions
Mobile printing questions
Do people need an app to print from their phone?
No. The print page is a web page. People open it in the browser they already have (Safari, Chrome, Edge, Firefox, Samsung Internet) and print. There’s nothing to download from an app store and nothing to keep updated.
Which files can people print?
PDFs as they are, and photos (JPG, PNG, WebP, GIF and BMP), one page each, fitted to the paper. Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OpenDocument, RTF and text files work too when LibreOffice is installed on the computer that runs Commontray; the Commontray Box has it built in. Without it, people are asked to save the file as a PDF.
Can people print from an iPhone?
Yes. A photo chosen from the Photos app arrives as a JPG and prints straight away. A HEIC file picked from the Files app gets a message asking for a JPG instead.
Do guests need to join our office Wi-Fi?
They need to reach the print page, which is on your local network. If you turn on Commontray’s secure web address, they can upload from any network, even mobile data, and release at the printer when they arrive. Either way they never connect to the printer itself.
Does mobile printing work with our printers?
If a printer accepts PDF or supports IPP Everywhere, yes. That covers most network printers sold in the last decade, but not every model. Run the free printer checker to see each printer’s answer.
How do people find the print page?
Put a QR code on the printer. Scanning it opens the print page with that printer already chosen. You can also share the address, or bookmark it on the front desk computer.
Let people print from the phone in their pocket.
Set up Commontray on a computer you already have, add your printers once, and share the QR code. Free for your first printer.