wierd printing question

[fritch]

I have a brand new brother printer. When i print from laptop with cable colors and print is normal and very good but printing wifi from my ipad 2 it is faded and looks like ink is low . would this be normal because its wireless ? I'm going to buy air print printer i've wasted a whole day buying apps and trying differant set ups . I can get it to print but to many steps and doesnt print all stuff. I'm not real good with this stuff i know thats part of the problem. Gotta be something easier.

 

[twerppoet]

It's probably just the settings in whatever app you are using to print with. The app will have it's own printer driver, which will probably be somewhat generic and unable to adjust for the printer. Below is some info on the current state (to the best of my knowledge) of iPad printing.

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Some printers are directly compatible with AirPrint on the iPad. This includes several HP printers and a smaller selection of Canon and Epson printers. Be absolutely certain the printer supports AirPrint before buying. Some printers may require a firmware update to work. These are usually available on the manufacturers site. If you get this kind of printer you can print directly from within apps that support the feature, which is many.

iOS: AirPrint 101

Of course some of us already have printers and do not want to buy a new one. There are a couple ways to do this.

One is to use a printing app on the iPad.
Most (or all) other print apps can only print pictures and/or files that have been copied to that app via Open In or other method. Print n Share used to be able to print from AirPrint enabled apps if it was loaded the background. It lost this ability with iOS 5. It may still work with iOS 4 if you get it before the app is updated in the App Store.

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).

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 (several months ago) 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.

 

[WayneF]

I went through the apps for printing and never could get any to work right. Staples had the HP 5514 all-in-one air print for less than $100 so I picked one up last night. Works great with the iPad2. The iPad finds the printer and displays it when you want to print, Touch it and then print and away you go. I should have done that before as it would have saved a lot of time and head scratching.

 

[helix2000]

Glad the problem is solved. I also have an HP and am able to the HP Eprint as well as AirPrint.