Android 12 has been out for a while, but we keep finding new things in it. The most recent noteworthy addition comes to the built-in printing department, which Google has improved thanks to code submitted by the Mopria Alliance, an industry body focused on creating universal printing and scanning standards. There are improvements for especially large files and better automatic support for different types of paper.

While printing capabilities are built into the mobile operating system itself since 2017's Android 8 Oreo as part of the Default Print Service, allowing you to use Android itself for printing instead of third-party apps, there were a few quirks that still needed working out.

For one, Mopria says that it’s now possible to print larger files, helping you get high-quality assets like banners, posters, displays, signage, and more on paper right from your Android phone. For another, printers addressed by your phone are now capable of automatically adjusting themselves to the type of paper that they detect in their tray. That means that in some cases, you should get higher-quality printouts without having to fiddle with settings on your phone. This is something desktop systems have long supported, so it’s great to see it on Android 12, too.

With all these improvements coming to printing on Android, it’s a shame that Google has shut down its convenient Google Cloud Print platform in 2021. It allowed you to turn any old printer into a network-connected device by looping it through the stationary computer it’s connected to. For those with modern network-connected printers, the Android 12 update is still a neat step forward to make printing easier. Even though a lot of documents don’t ever have to be printed out these days, it’s good to have a neat and simple solution at hand right on your phone if you do need to do it.

Full disclosure: Mopria has previously run sponsored posts on Android Police. These do not influence or interfere with our editorial content in any way.