Yesterday, Chrome OS 85 started rolling out to users right on schedule and with it, there were a number of updates that will make the user experience even more enjoyable. As we had hoped, there are some unannounced features that came along for the ride and one of them blind-sided me this morning. Developers have been working on print management for Chrome OS off and on over the past few months but I didn’t think that the feature was anywhere near ready for primetime. I was wrong.
As one of our fellow Chromies pointed out in our Discord chat, Chrome OS 85 added a new app to the launcher called “Print Jobs.” Originally branded “print management app,” the new feature appears to be a system web app and was recently updated to Print Jobs last month. As you’d expect, this app will give you a hub for viewing active and historical print jobs. There’s not a lot going on here at the moment but it does show active and past print jobs. During an active printing session, I was able to cancel the print job which is exactly what you’d expect this app to do.
As I said, we weren’t expecting to see a print management app in this update but it looks like developers were ready to get this one out the door. This builds on the ongoing updates to Chrome OS’ ability to print with ease. Chromebooks are gaining network access to a wide number of printer types through this evolving process and Print Jobs is a small, albeit important piece to that puzzle. This will be a welcome change for long-time Chromebook users who were once cursed with the inability to install whatever printer they wanted. It will also be a necessary update when Cloud printing finally gets laid to rest in December of 2020. In related news, Chrome OS Canary now lists a “scanning” app that should, eventually, allow users to scan directly from their devices without the need to install an app or navigate to a web address like you can with HP and other printers. If you haven’t discovered the Print Jobs app yet, make sure you’ve updated to Chrome OS 85 and search the app launcher for “print jobs.” I’m excited to see what other features may be added to this system app in the future. It has definitely been a long time coming.
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