How to disable or enable System Print Dialog in Chrome

If the Print Dialog box is not appearing, then in this post we will show you how to print using System Dialog in the Chrome browser on Windows 11/10. For some, this box is an irritant. Understandably, Not only does it pop up whenever you wish to do a simple print job, but it also tempts users to use unwanted printer settings that may not be suitable for subsequent print jobs.

The best way to avoid Chrome’s print dialog box is to connect a single printer to your computer. However, if you have multiple printers connected to your computer, it always shows you the dialog box.

Disable System Print Dialog in Chrome

1] Disable print preview in the shortcut target

To turn off the print dialog box in Chrome, first find the Google Chrome shortcut, most likely on your desktop. If you can’t find it, press the Windows key and search for Chrome.

Right-click on Google Chrome from the search results and hit the Open file location option from the context menu.

When you find the Chrome shortcut, right-click on the icon and select Properties.

In the Chrome.exe Properties window, click on the Shortcuts tab. Click in the Target field and move your cursor to the end of the text there. Add the following command-line switch here:

–disable-print-preview

Save the settings by clicking on the Apply button and then hit OK to close the window. This operation turns off the print dialog box in Google Chrome.

2] How to bypass Chrome’s Print dialog box

Another command-line switch to use for disabling Chrome’s print dialog is -kiosk-printing. With this method, the system skips Windows print preview, as well as that of Chrome. It, therefore, prints quickly.

Start by closing all instances of Google Chrome. With Chrome closed, find its shortcut and right-click on it. Choose the Properties option from the context menu. Navigate to the Shortcut tab in Properties.

Add the following command-line switch to the end of the Target field:

-kiosk-printing

Hit the Apply button and click on OK to complete the operation.

After adding this switch to the Target field, whenever you want to print out a webpage off Chrome, the print dialog box shows up briefly and then closes immediately.

Read: How to Enable or Disable Scrollable Tabstrip in Google Chrome.

Enable the System Print Dialog box in Chrome

1] Undo the shortcut Target modifications

The system print dialog box is enabled on Chrome by default. So, you don’t need to do anything to enable it, other than undoing the actions described in the previous section about disabling the modifications.

Whenever you try to print a webpage off Chrome, either with the CTRL +P hotkey or via the three dots at the top right-hand corner, the print dialog box shows up.

I can show you how to bring up the print settings even if you are not printing anything. The CTRL + SHIFT + P key combination brings up the system print dialog box, from which you can configure your default print settings and print out the page you are viewing.

2] Create a new shortcut

You can keep your modifications to the system print dialog box and still have it enabled whenever you want. Read on as I explain this.

In the previous section, I showed you how to disable this dialog box by modifying the shortcut target. Here, all you have to do is right-click on the Chrome shortcut and hit copy.

Navigate to your preferred location and press the CTRL + V key combination to paste it there. You can also get the shortcut by searching for Chrome in the Start menu and opening the file location, as described earlier in this guide.

Right-click on the new shortcut now and hit Properties. Go to the Shortcut tab and click in the Target field.

Move your cursor to the end of the text in this field and delete everything after chrome.exe” (don’t delete the quotes (“)).

Click on the Apply button and hit OK to close the dialog box.

What happens now is that the system print dialog box is left enabled when you launch the Chrome browser from the new shortcut. However, if you launch the browser from the shortcut with the modified Target, you open an instance of Chrome with the system print dialog box disabled.

3] Enable the System Print Dialog box in Chrome using Registry Editor

Using a Registry tweak to enable system print dialog for the Chrome browser is more effective than creating and using a shortcut. Once the required Registry tweak is applied, the print preview feature of the Chrome browser is disabled completely. Neither the Ctrl+P hotkey nor the Print… option present in Customize and control Google Chrome setting will work to open the print preview feature of Google Chrome. Instead, the system print dialog is opened directly. The changes are applied for incognito mode too.

You can also disable the system print dialog for the Chrome browser and re-enable the print preview feature of Google Chrome anytime you need. But, before trying this Registry tweak, we recommend you to take backup of Windows Registry. Once done, follow these steps:

Open Registry Editor window
Access the Google Registry key
Create a Chrome key
Create DisablePrintPreview DWORD value
Set Value data of DisablePrintPreview to 1
Press the OK button
Restart the Google Chrome browser.

Below is a detailed explanation of these steps.

In the very first step, open the Registry Editor window on your Windows 11/10 computer. Just type regedit in the Search box and use the Enter key or open the Registry Editor window using any other way you want.

After opening the Registry Editor, access a Google name Registry key. Here is the path to access it:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Google

If for some reason, this Google key is not present, then first create a new Registry key, and name it Google. Under the Google key, create a new key, and name it Chrome (as visible in the image added above).

Now, on the right section of the Chrome Registry key, open the right-click menu, go to the New section, and click on DWORD (32-bit) Value. After this, rename that DWORD value to DisablePrintPreview.

It is time to set the Value data of this DWORD value so that you can disable the print preview feature of Google Chrome. For doing this, double-click on the DisablePrintPreview DWORD value. You will see an Edit DWORD (32-bit) Value box. There, add 1 in the text field of Value data, and press the OK button.

Finally, restart the Chrome browser if you have opened it. Now whenever you will try to take a print of a webpage, the system print dialog will open.

To enable the print preview feature of Google Chrome again, simply follow the above steps, and either delete the Chrome key or the Google key. Restart your Google Chrome browser to successfully apply the changes.

What is Print using System Dialog?

Print using system dialog helps to take print of a webpage using the system print dialog box for browsers like Chrome, Firefox, and Microsoft Edge. Using that box, you can select a printer, set page range, number of copies, page layout, etc., before you print a page.

By default, when you try to take a print of a webpage, the print preview feature of the web browser is opened. But, if you want, you can also use the system print dialog to take print of a webpage in Chrome, Firefox, and Edge browsers. For this:

Open the print preview dialog box of a browser
Access the More settings section
There, you will see a Print using system dialog option. Click that option and the system print dialog will open.

How do I turn off the Print Dialog in Chrome?

If you are using Windows 11/10 computer, then you can turn off the print dialog box or print preview feature of the Chrome browser using any of these two options:

Using the Google Chrome shortcut icon
Using Registry Editor.

While the first option works only when you open the Chrome browser using its shortcut icon, the second option works no matter whether you open Google Chrome from the taskbar, Start menu, or using the shortcut icon.

Both the options with step-by-step instructions are covered in this post above. After using any of these options, when you will use the print command for a webpage in Google Chrome, the system print dialog will open directly and you won’t see the print dialog box of Google Chrome at all.