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Public preview of Universal Print on macOS

Robert_Cunningham's avatar
Robert_Cunningham
Icon for Microsoft rankMicrosoft
Feb 07, 2024

When we developed Universal Print, our goal was to create a single print solution that meets people where they are and "just works—from every app, on every device.  Today, we're taking a new step toward that vision by announcing the public preview of Universal Print on macOS.

This capability delivers full support for Mac devices within the Universal Print infrastructure. People can now print from any Mac app using the system print dialog without having to install drivers. If you were previously hesitant to adopt Universal Print because of a mixed Windows and Mac environment, you can now move ahead knowing all your workers are supported, regardless of operating system. This capability is available immediately after enabling the feature in the Azure Portal.

Adding printers

A new Universal Print macOS app is now available in the App Store. After installing the app and signing in to a Universal Print eligible Microsoft Entra ID account, people can search for printers by name (e.g., "Building 8" or "Design Studio") or even narrow down the list by location, then add relevant printers to their devices.

That's it – no learning curve! Try it today!

Getting started

If you have eligible Universal Print licenses, you already have access to this new capability! Read the documentation or follow these short steps to get started:

  1. Configure the macOS Support (preview) setting to "Show all printers". You can access this new setting on the Settings page.

    The Global settings page for Universal Print in the Microsoft Azure Portal.
  2. Get the Universal Print app from the App Store and sign in with an account that has Universal Print access and access to at least one printer.

    The Universal Print system dialog in macOS showing a list of available printers
  3. Find and install a printer.

    The Add Printer dialog showing a search for printers by keyword
  4. Try it out – print something from an app you frequently use!

    The Print dialog in macOS showing the Universal Print printer

Share your thoughts

We'd love to hear about your experience with the public preview of Universal Print for macOS. Your input really does guide our future investments. Please share your ideas and feature requests with us, start discussions in the Universal Print Tech Community, and leave a review in the App Store.

Additional resources

macOS support is just one recent announcement. To learn about other capabilities, read the latest installment of What's new for Universal Print. If a demo is what you are looking for, check out our self-paced guided tour, Get to know Universal Print. Or, hear directly from the experts on Universal Print and cloud printing by watching Tackling Tech.

Published Feb 07, 2024
Version 1.0
universal print

41 Comments

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  • amartin253's avatar
    amartin253
    Copper Contributor
    May 09, 2024

    Thank you for this app! So far, it's working great on my Mac. All of the Universal Print printers showed up for me and I did a comparison between printing via the Cloud Print connection and IP and they were nearly identical in timing and quality. Deploying to the rest of my Mac fleet via Jamf now. Will report back if I hit any snags

  • Drogon1635's avatar
    Drogon1635
    Copper Contributor
    Apr 25, 2024

    Just confirming that Ricoh printers still have issues printing in Landscape. After raising the issue with Microsoft they are now reaching out to Ricoh to help solve the issue. Anyone else with Ricoh printers trying this?

  • Maciej_Cybulski's avatar
    Maciej_Cybulski
    Copper Contributor
    Apr 19, 2024

    Hello Braeden_Petruk_MSFT ,

    It seems we might be hit with the same issue as user ctpg-jb .
    Exactly the same error.

    How can I confirm if I have both MSA and Entra signed in or not?
    I understand we should only have Entra signed in when using Universal Print app?
    Strange thing is the app crashes right after the API error which seems to be related to sqlite.

  • Braeden_Petruk_MSFT's avatar
    Braeden_Petruk_MSFT
    Icon for Microsoft rankMicrosoft
    Apr 18, 2024

    ctpg-jb Do you by any chance have an MSA account signed in, in addition to the Microsoft Entra ID account with an eligible Universal Print license?

     

    svrndls_work Are you able to collect logs from a machine where the printers are not visible and submit them along with a support request so we can investigate the issue further?

     

    georgepambous I responded to your email.

  • georgepambous's avatar
    georgepambous
    Copper Contributor
    Apr 03, 2024

    Hello  Braeden_Petruk_MSFT

    Any news from brother ; i don't see any firmware yet on all of our models and there is a silent from them.

    Also i wanted to ask if anyone has tested Xerox VersaLink C415 Color Multifunction Printer as we are thinking of moving from brother to Xerox for our new offices.

    Thanks

     

     

  • svrndls_work's avatar
    svrndls_work
    Copper Contributor
    Mar 25, 2024

    We just tested this out and some weird things happened.
    One person who had acces to 1 of the printers saw all of them, he could add them but not print from the ones he didn't have access to.

    On my device (I have access to all printers) I don't see any printer, so I cannot add any printer. Looked for name and for location (Location is set in printer settings).


    We changed the setting in Azure to     Show all printers before we installed the client.

    The printers show up for us under the same user accounts on Windows.

     

    Any thoughts?

  • ctpg-jb's avatar
    ctpg-jb
    Copper Contributor
    Mar 24, 2024

    Braeden_Petruk_MSFT and Robert_Cunningham 

    First of thanks for releasing this preview feature. It has been urgently needed at my org. I did a test deployment last night through jamf to my mac. The application installed successfully but when I click the sign in button nothing happens. I am a full admin, the device is supervise managed by jamf, and it is intune enrolled for compliance (jamf/intune integration). 

     

    I have tried reinstalling the app and clearing settings with "defaults delete com.microsoft.universalprintmac". No change. 

     

    I don't see anything relevant in ~/Library/Group Containers/UBF8T346G9.com.microsoft.universalprintmac/Library/Caches/log.txt 

     

    When I monitor logs at ~/Library/Group Containers/UBF8T346G9.com.microsoft.universalprintmac/Library/Caches/log.txt with console, after I hit the sign in button in universal print I see the following: 

     

    error 13:13:41.217991-0500 cfprefsd Couldn't open parent path due to [2: No such file or directory]
    error 13:13:41.218892-0500 Universal Print cannot open file at line 49295 of [1b37c146ee]
    error 13:13:41.218911-0500 Universal Print os_unix.c:49295: (2) open(/private/var/db/DetachedSignatures) - No such file or directory
    error 13:13:41.219069-0500 Universal Print API call with invalid database connection pointer
    error 13:13:41.219089-0500 Universal Print misuse at line 186073 of [1b37c146ee]
    error 13:13:41.220005-0500 Universal Print API call with invalid database connection pointer
    error 13:13:41.220226-0500 Universal Print misuse at line 186073 of [1b37c146ee]
    fault 13:13:41.220372-0500 Universal Print __delegate_identifier__:Performance Diagnostics__:::____message__:This method should not be called on the main thread as it may lead to UI unresponsiveness.
    fault 13:13:41.221795-0500 Universal Print __delegate_identifier__:Performance Diagnostics__:::____message__:This method should not be called on the main thread as it may lead to UI unresponsiveness.
    fault 13:13:41.224905-0500 Universal Print __delegate_identifier__:Performance Diagnostics__:::____message__:This method should not be called on the main thread as it may lead to UI unresponsiveness.
    fault 13:13:41.225814-0500 Universal Print __delegate_identifier__:Performance Diagnostics__:::____message__:This method should not be called on the main thread as it may lead to UI unresponsiveness.
    error 13:13:41.226099-0500 SystemUIServer Failed to refresh menu extra items. Error: Error Domain=NSPOSIXErrorDomain Code=2 "No such file or directory"
    error 13:13:41.234086-0500 Universal Print API call with invalid database connection pointer
    error 13:13:41.235130-0500 Universal Print misuse at line 186073 of [1b37c146ee]

     

    Any thoughts? I am unable to open a ticket in my azure admin portal including the logs as we have a nested azure account under an MSP that used to run our IT department. We are currently in the process of separating from them as we have built our internal IT team. 

     

    Thanks!