add-a-printer-ubuntu.md

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Printer Setup (Ubuntu)	Here is how to add a printer in Ubuntu.	Support Printing Printer System76	/_social/article	/_social/article	false	hardware	true

To add a printer to your System76 Computer, click the Ubuntu icon at the top left of your screen and type the word Printers then choose the Printers application in the search box. In the Printers Application, click the Add button and a box will pop up with different options. Wait a few seconds for printers to appear in the Device List.

Select the correct printer and click Forward. The computer will search for the correct Drivers to enable the printer. A box may come up that says 'Installable Options' which you can select any other options available for your printer and then click Forward again. Name your printer in the next dialogue box and click Apply. A prompt to print a test page will appear next.

HP and Epson Printers

First in the Software & Updates settings go to the Other Software tab, and check the first item, Canonical Partners. Then, after closing the Software & Updates program, add the driver with this command for HP:

sudo apt install hplip

If you would like to use a guided GUI application from HP, you will need to install a python dependency:

sudo apt install python3-pyqt5
hp-setup

Epson printer drivers are in the printer-driver-escpr package and is also installed by default. You may need to install the lsb package for some printer versions:

sudo apt install lsb printer-driver-escpr

Automatically installed printers will work fine, but if you need to make changes to the configuration of the printers, you will need to add your user to the 'lpadmin' group. To do that run the following command:

sudo usermod -aG lpadmin $USER

And when adding the printer, select type of connection as DNS-SD, and then Forward, and then ESC/P-R.

Troubleshooting

If the printer stops working, open the Printers Application again and right-click on the printer and select Delete to remove the printer and its settings. Repeat the steps above to add the printer and try printing the test page again. This process usually resolves many printing issues.

To look at the CUPS (Common Unix Printing System) configuration and status window, please open this webpage:

localhost:631

The status window will show current print jobs, detected printers, and other information about the printing system. If you would like to share this printer with others on your local network, click on the 'Admin' link, under Server, click on the "Share printers connected to this system" and save the changes. Other computers on your network should than see that printer.

Useful Commands

sudo apt install --reinstall cups cups-client

This will reinstall CUPS, the main printing software, which can help with generic issues.

sudo apt install --reinstall ~n^system-config-printer

This will reinstall the system control panel if the settings are not available.