How to print a picture or attachment sent in e-mail

Updated: 12/31/2020 by Computer Hope

If you receive a photo in an e-mail and you want to print it out, these tips help you get the best results possible.

Printing a picture sent in e-mail

E-mail message

To print a photo that you've received in an e-mail, follow these steps.

  1. Open the picture you want to print in an image viewer or editor program.
  2. Once the image is open, print the image by clicking File and Print or clicking the print button in the image you're viewing the image. If you cannot find the print option, try pressing the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+P or Command+P.

If the program you are using to view images does not support either of the above options, try an alternative image editor.

Printing multiple small pictures

In some situations, you may receive an e-mail with multiple pictures. If these pictures are small, you can also print the images all at once by following the steps below.

  1. Open a word processor, such as Microsoft Word or OpenOffice Writer, or another program that supports the ability to add a picture.
  2. Open the image and copy the image into the clipboard. Often right-clicking with your mouse on the image and selecting Copy is the easiest method of doing this. You may also be able to select the image and press Ctrl+C on the keyboard to copy the image.
  3. Switch back to the word processor and paste the image into the document. To do this, right-click your mouse on the image and select Paste, or click Edit in the program's top menu bar and select Paste usually. You may also be able to press Ctrl+C on the keyboard to paste the image.
  4. Repeat the above steps for each of the images you want to print. Also, you can resize the images in the word processor, but realize that this can distort the image.
  1. Once all pictures are added to the word processing document and adjusted, print the document.

Printing an attached PDF, Word, or Excel document

If you have another type of attachment you want to print, it must be opened in the program that supports that file type. For example, a PDF (Portable Document Format) file can be opened in Adobe Reader or Adobe Acrobat, a .DOC or Word file would open in Microsoft Word, and a .XLS or Excel file would open in Microsoft Excel. Once the file is opened in a program, print the file from within that program.

If you're unable to open an attachment, it's likely that its file extension cannot be associated with any program currently installed on the computer. For example, if you don't have Microsoft Word installed on the computer and a .DOC file is sent to you, the file can't be opened. To open this type of file, you must purchase and install Microsoft Word or install one of the free Word alternatives.

Other file types can be identified by looking at the file extensions. Visit the link below to see a listing of all file extensions and programs that support those files.