Help with printers

[martyb]

Do you need a particular type of wifi / network printer in order to print from iPad wirelessly.

My dad has bought a fairly cheap wifi printer (£30) and we are having no luck at all with it?!!

Any feedback or knowledge would be much appreciated

Thank you

 

[Jrs22]

Only certain printers work out-of-the box with iPad AirPrint. You can check the apple website for a list. I have a canon, which isn't on the list, but canon has an app in the app store that enables printing some types of files. So if your printer is not supported by apple search on the brand name in the app store.

 

[martyb]

Only certain printers work out-of-the box with iPad AirPrint. You can check the apple website for a list. I have a canon, which isn't on the list, but canon has an app in the app store that enables printing some types of files. So if your printer is not supported by apple search on the brand name in the app store.

Thank you so so much big help ours is a 'kodak' do you know the name of the app / what to search for please. That would be a great help.

 

[Jrs22]

If I were you I'd search on kodak. If kodak hasn't created a printing app you could search this forum for advice on commercial apps that might work with your printer.

 

[twerppoet]

Only HP's AirPrint printers are directly compatible with the iPad.

iOS: AirPrint 101

There are a couple ways around this. One is to use an printing app on the iPad. The current favorite is Print and Share. It will work with most wi-fi printers, and those that it won't work with can be made to work with an additional program on the computer.

The second method is to load a program on the computer that will emulate an AirPrint compatible printer. Your computer must be on and have the printer available to it. The cheapest (free) is Airprint Activator. More features can be had with FingerPrint (mac and windows) and Printopia (mac only).

I use Printopia, and love it. Tim likes Fingerprint, but he has Windows, and doesn't know what he is missing.**

There is a third way. A few printers (mostly HP's again) can be set up with their own email address. PDF attachments can be sent via this address to be printed. The last review I saw said it could be quite slow (big files not recommended), and sometimes the emails got lost and never printed. The advantage was that you could literally send/print from anywhere you have an internet connection.