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You may not have an expensive new printer, but that doesn’t mean you can’t set it up to print from any of your devices. Google Cloud Print is a brilliant free service that breathes new life into your ageing printer by hooking it up to your network so you can print over the internet. Th at way if you want to print something from your tablet, phone or another computer anywhere in the world you can do so with just a couple of clicks. You’ll need the Chrome browser installed on the computer your printer is already connected to and a Google account (you’ll already have one if you use Gmail). For this to work, your printer and the computer your printer is connected to will both need to be switched on.

To enable Cloud Print on your PC, open Chrome, click the top-right menu icon and select Settings. In the ‘Search settings’ box type print and click Manage then ‘Add printers’ (you may have to log into your Google account to do this). You’ll now see a list of available printers. Make sure the tickbox is selected next to the make and model of the printer connected to your PC and click ‘Add printer(s)’. To print from any other computer open Chrome, sign into your Google account and go to

www.google.com/cloudprint. Click PRINT, ‘Upload file to print’, then ‘Select a file from my computer’. Select the file you want, click Open, select your printer, change any relevant settings for

print size, colour or number of copies, then click Print. Within a few minutes your printer will spring into life and start printing.

To print from an Android phone or tablet you need to install the free Google Cloud Print app (play.google.com/Cloudprint). Open the app and tap the top-right printer icon to select a file to print. Any apps you can print from will be available to select, including Google Drive, Dropbox and your photo app. Select the file you want to print, tap Select then choose your printer and tap Select again.

Change any settings for colour, orientation and number of copies and then tap the top-right arrow icon to print.

On iOS you can easily access your printer via the Google Chrome or Google Drive apps. In Chrome, open the webpage you want to print, tap options, Print, Google Cloud Print, select your printer, change any print options and tap Print. In Google Drive, navigate to the relevant document stored on Drive, then tap the small ‘i’ icon. Next, tap Print, Google Cloud Print, select your printer, change any print settings and tap Print