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When Chrome OS was first announced last year Google made a concerted effort to showcase their operating system’s fast loading speeds, simple design and most of all it’s security features. There was still a lot of mystery though on the simpler and more mundane functions of Chrome OS; “would it print, and if so…how”?

Today Google has revealed that indeed Chrome OS devices will be able to print. This will be done using their “Google Cloud Print” platform which will allow web applications to print on any printer. Below is an except from Google’s press release:

Since in Google Chrome OS all applications are web apps, we wanted to design a printing experience that would enable web apps to give users the full printing capabilities that native apps have today. Using the one component all major devices and operating systems have in common– access to the cloud– today we’re introducing some preliminary designs for a project called Google Cloud Print, a service that enables any application (web, desktop, or mobile) on any device to print to any printer.

Rather than rely on the local operating system (or drivers) to print, apps can use Google Cloud Print to submit and manage print jobs. Google Cloud Print will then be responsible for sending the print job to the appropriate printer with the particular options the user selected, and returning the job status to the app.

Not only Chrome OS will have access to these printing capabilities but Google is making sure that they create a convergent platform which will allow mobile devices (e.g. Android Phones and Tablets) to tap into this platform too.

The source code for Google Cloud Print has been released under the current open source Chromium and Chromium OS projects and should allow developers to get acquainted with it.

As mentioned earlier there was much confusion as to how Chrome OS devices could possibly support printing especially without driver software. The new Google Cloud Print plaform should solve this and make it easy to print without installing drivers;

Rather than rely on the local operating system (or drivers) to print, apps can use Google Cloud Print to submit and manage print jobs. Google Cloud Print will then be responsible for sending the print job to the appropriate printer with the particular options the user selected, and returning the job status to the app.

If you are interested in taking a look at the source code for Google Cloud Print you can find it here. And for any support, visit the Chrome OS Lounge.