Printing documents is a primary need to many of LibreOffice users. This article discusses how to do printings from LibreOffice Writer by an example of an A5 page document. We use a Canon MP160--our old but recommended multifunction printer--, on Ubuntu 24.04 "Noble Numbat" to practice this. We hope this helps everyone who uses Ubuntu for all of their computing life especially printings. Now let's start reading and go printing!

1. Connect the printer and open a document

First, turn the printer on and plug the printer cable to a USB port and then on LibreOffice, click File -> Open to open a document. Now, both your printer and your document are ready to print.

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2. Put papers in the printer tray

Second, make sure you have papers of the same size with the document you want to print. If the document is in A4 size, then prepare some A4 papers. If the document is in A5 size, then prepare some A5 papers (half A4). And so on. In this example, we show you how we print out an A5 sized paper.

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3. Show the Print dialog (Ctrl+P)

Third, on LibreOffice Writer, click Printer button or press Ctrl+P to show the Print dialog. 

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4. Adjust the printing to your needs (number of pages, colors)

Fourth, change the printing options according to your needs. Otherwise, skip to step number 5. Important to note: that printing from Writer will automatically set the paper size according to your page layout, so you don't need to re-configure it every time, and this is better than printing a PDF from Document Viewer.

a) Page number: for example, choose "Current page" then fill in 2-5 to print selectively only four pages from 2 to 5.

b) Colors: for example, default options (without changing) is printing with colors in RGB mode. 

c) Black and white: if you don't want to print in colors but only black and white, select Grayscale option.

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5. Print out

Fifth, click Print button. This will execute the actual printing command to the printer and printing mechanism will start. If everything is okay, you will get your papers printed as expected. Happy printing!

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6. Troubleshooting

a) What if the printing process suddenly stopped? Check if the printer is on and connected to your Ubuntu computer either via cable or wifi.

b) How to resume a paused printing? Run Printers from the Ubuntu menu then select a printing job and click Resume button.

c) What if the printer is not recognized by Ubuntu? Follow Set up a local printer from the official Ubuntu documentation.

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See Also

1. How To Install a Printer on Ubuntu by an example of Canon MP160

2. Printing on Ubuntu, our old tutorial from 2018

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