Printers and Scanners

As you would expect, Windows 11 connects to printers and scanners locally using a USB cable or over your home network.
Printers
Windows supports the same traditional printing capabilities that it has for years, and printers work much as they always have. But there is one interesting wrinkle: you can print to easily-shared PDF files in addition to hardware printers.
Configure printers
Printers & scanners settings---available by navigating to Settings > Devices > Printers & scanners---provides only basic printer controls: You can add new printers here, but there's little in the way of printer configuration.

There is one important option here: "Let Windows manage my default printer." If you leave this option set to its default setting of On, Windows 11 will always configure the default printer to be the most recently-used printer. If you don't like this behavior, just configure this option to "Off."
By default, this interface displays only a single virtual printers, Microsoft Print to PDF. But if Microsoft Office is installed, you will see a second entry for OneNote (Desktop) as well.
Microsoft Print to PDF is described later in this chapter.
However, if Windows 11 detects a printer---either on the local network or attached directly to the PC---that will appear here as well. If you have a printer that is not displayed here, you will need to add it.
Add a printer
To add a printer, click "Add device" next to "Add a printer or scanner." Windows 11 will look for a printer and add any that it finds to the list of available devices.

Click "Add device" next to a found printer you wish to add. Windows will download and install the necessary drivers, and then that printer will appear in the list, ready for action.

You may also be prompted to download an app for the printer: many printers have custom software that exceeds the capabilities of the basic driver and printing interface provided by Microsoft. If so, you will see a second entry for the printer with a "Get app" button so that you can download the app from the Microsoft Store.

If you are offered an app from the device maker, you'll probably want to use that app when you print. Otherwise, you can configure the printer using Windows, as noted in the next section.

If Windows didn't find your printer, you can click the "Add manually" link next to "The printer that I want isn't listed." This option is best used for older printers, but you will see options for network-attached, Bluetooth, and other types of printers.

Configure a printer
If you are going to use the Windows driver to print, you can configure the printer so that it's optimized for your needs. To do so, select the printer in the list.

If you declined to let Windows manage your default printer, you will see a "Set as default" button at the top of this page. Click that to make this printer your default printer.

Then, select Printing preferences. The Printing preferences window for...