The quickest path to adding printing capabilities to your Android app. By utilizing Android's standard Share Intent mechanism, your app can offer printing functionality without writing a single line of PrintHand-specific code. When users share content suitable for printing from your app, PrintHand automatically appears as one of the sharing options, just like email or social media apps.

This approach is ideal for apps that want to provide printing with minimal development effort. Many well-established applications with no direct connection to PrintHand use this method to enable their users to print documents, images, and other content. The beauty of this integration is its simplicity—if your app already implements Android's Share functionality for other purposes, printing comes for free.

How It Works

When a user selects "Share" in your application and chooses PrintHand from the list of available apps, Android passes the content to PrintHand. PrintHand then takes over the entire printing workflow: rendering the content, displaying a preview, allowing the user to configure printer settings, and finally sending the job to the selected printer. Your app simply initiates the share action and PrintHand handles everything else.

Supported Content Types

• Images: JPEG, PNG, GIF, and other standard image formats
• Documents: PDF files and plain text
• Web Content: URLs and HTML content
• Custom Data: Any content your app can share via standard Android intents

Requirements

Users must have PrintHand app installed on their device with a valid license to print. Your app requires no special permissions or dependencies—just the standard Android Share Intent implementation that most apps already use.

Implementation

If your app already implements Android's Share functionality, no additional code is needed. If not, implementing a basic share action is straightforward using Android's standard ShareCompat or Intent.ACTION_SEND APIs. The PrintHand documentation and sample code provide examples of proper implementation.

The Intent API provides a powerful middle ground between zero-code sharing and full SDK integration. It allows your application to programmatically discover printers, configure printing options, and initiate print jobs—all while maintaining control over your app's user interface and workflow. This is the most commonly used integration method for developers who want meaningful control without the complexity of low-level printing operations.

With the Intent API, you can build custom printer selection dialogs, create preset printing configurations, and integrate printing seamlessly into your app's existing workflows. Your app communicates with PrintHand through a series of well-defined intents that handle printer discovery, option configuration, content rendering, and job submission. PrintHand processes these requests and returns results back to your app, allowing you to maintain full control over the user experience.

Key Capabilities

• Printer Discovery: Programmatically discover available printers via WiFi, Bluetooth, and USB
• Settings Configuration: Control paper size, orientation, quality, color mode, and other printer-specific options
• Content Rendering: Let PrintHand handle complex document rendering or submit pre-rendered content
• Print Job Management: Initiate printing, monitor status, and handle results

Integration Workflow

Your app sends intents to PrintHand's Intent API service to perform specific operations. For example, to print a document, your app would: discover available printers and present them in your UI, allow the user to select a printer and configure options, send a print intent with the content and selected settings, and receive confirmation when the print job completes. Each step uses standard Android Intent communication, making integration straightforward for Android developers.

Use Cases

The Intent API is perfect for applications with complex content like office documents, maps, custom forms, or reports that require app-specific rendering. It's also ideal when you want to preset printing options based on document type or user preferences, or when you need to integrate printing into multi-step workflows where users shouldn't leave your app.

Requirements

Users need PrintHand app installed with a valid license. Your app must include the PrintHand Intent API service declarations in your manifest and implement the intent communication protocol as documented in our API reference and sample code.

The PrintHand SDK provides direct, low-level access to our printing engine, offering maximum flexibility and control for sophisticated applications. Unlike the Intent API, which relies on PrintHand's UI components, the SDK gives you complete freedom to design every aspect of the printing experience. This approach is ideal for enterprise applications, white-label solutions, or any app that requires printing to happen invisibly in the background without user interaction.

With the SDK, you gain granular control over every aspect of the printing process: printer detection and filtering, driver management and installation, print job queueing and prioritization, custom error handling and recovery. Your application becomes fully responsible for the entire printing workflow, from presenting printer options to the user to handling job completion and errors.

Advanced Capabilities

• Complete UI Control: Build custom printer discovery, configuration, and preview interfaces that match your app's design
• Background Printing: Execute print jobs without any user interaction or UI components
• Driver Management: Programmatically download and manage printer drivers for supported devices
• Custom Rendering: Full control over content preparation and rendering pipeline
• Enterprise Features: Job queueing, batch printing, automated printer selection, and custom error handling

Implementation Complexity

The SDK requires a deeper understanding of mobile printing concepts and significantly more development effort than the Intent API. Your application must provide complete UI for printer discovery, display printer capabilities and options, handle driver downloads and installation, manage print job lifecycle, and implement error handling and recovery. However, this effort is rewarded with unparalleled flexibility and control.

SDK Structure

The PrintHand SDK is provided as a Java library that integrates directly into your Android application. It exposes a comprehensive API for all printing operations, with detailed documentation covering printer management, job submission, status monitoring, and configuration management. The SDK is designed to be thread-safe and efficient, suitable for high-volume printing scenarios.

Use Cases

Perfect for enterprise applications requiring automated printing workflows, point-of-sale systems that need receipt printing without user interaction, logistics and delivery apps with high-volume label printing, and white-label solutions where PrintHand branding should not appear.

Requirements

Users need either the PrintHand app or the standalone PrintHand printing service installed on their device with a valid license. Your app must include the SDK library in your project and requires understanding of printer communication protocols and Android printing architecture for optimal implementation.

Sample Code & Resources

To help you get started with PrintHand integration, we've created a comprehensive sample application demonstrating all three integration methods. The sample code shows best practices for implementing each approach, handling edge cases, and providing a great user experience.

GitHub Repository

Our PrintingSample repository contains working examples of Share Intent, Intent API, and SDK integration. The code is well-documented and demonstrates real-world usage patterns. Visit our GitHub repository at:

github.com/DynamixSoftware/PrintingSample

Documentation

Detailed API documentation, integration guides, and troubleshooting resources are available in the repository's wiki. We regularly update the documentation based on developer feedback and new Android versions.

Support

For technical questions, integration assistance, or to report issues, contact our developer support team at support@printhand.com. We're here to help you successfully integrate PrintHand into your application.