Apple has introduced a ‘print’ button onto iPads, iPhones and iPods to allow you to print directly to a printer from your iOS device. Unfortunately you need a special AirPrint enabled printer. Thankfully there is a free application called ‘AirPrint Activator’ that allows you to print to any printer, here’s where to get it and how to use it.
AIRPRINT
On your iPhone at the bottom of some apps is a ‘share’ button. If you click this button you get a menu of different ways to share the content, one of these options is ‘print’ as shown below.
Share Button
Print Button
When you press the ‘Print’ button you will be given an option to choose a printer, but unless you have a special AirPrint printer’ you will see no printers here at all. (I have a Canon IR5000, a Canon inkjet, a Xerox and a HP and none of them are AirPrint!)
If you don’t have an AirPrint printer there will be no printer here to select
AIRPRINT ON NON-AIRPRINT PRINTERS
If you want your non-airprint printer to appear then you can download the following free donationware application called ‘AirPrint Activator‘ ‘HandyPrint’ from netputing. It’s free for 14 days then it asks for a donation of the amount your choice.
You download it to a macintosh computer that’s attached to your printer, then it allows you to print via the computer to any printer via AirPrint. Your computer acts as a bridge between your iOS device and printer. Note you can’t print directly from an iPad to a non air-print printer, only via a computer.
Click here to go to the netputing page to find the latest version. It works on Mountain Lion and iOS6.
This will download a little application called ‘HandyPrint’.
You may then need to click on the ‘downloads’ button in the top right of Safari to find where it has been downloaded to.
Click on the ‘Show Downloads’ button to find it.
Now run HandyPrint by double clicking the HandyPrint application.
You should get a window that looks like the one below.
Press the slider to ‘Turn On’ AirPrint.
The Printer should now appear in your iPad or iPhone printing menu!
NOTE:
There is a PC version that I’ve found but it costs $20. You can download from here:
http://www.collobos.com Anyone found a free PC version?
will this work on a mac book pro as my printer is a epson ,and it’s on my wireless net work
Not sure what I am doing wrong. It shows up on my iPad, I print to it but nothing ever happens on the printer. Any advice?
If your computer you installed AirPrint on goes to sleep AirPrint will not activate. it seems as though the computer needs to be awake.
I have an iPhone 4S with the latest iOS (5.1.1) I have tried everything possible but this thing does not work. It just sits there and does nothing. If anyone figures out anything, please let me know at: rex.rexmano@gmail.com
Thanks.
Turned on printer sharing, turned on internet sharing, printer comes up on list of advertised printers, but I can’t select a printer. I’m running 10.7.4 on my mac and 5.11 on my iPhone 4.
Bass Mule
You do not have to select from the list of advertised printers. You iphone or
or Ipad will recognize the printer that you have. Your printer has to be on.
Good luck.
I download the AirPrint file to my iPad but doesn’t open to install on iPad, do I need an app to install this.
The file goes to your home computer not your iPad. In other words, this prints through your desktop computer to your printer, not directly to your printer.
So this won’t work with an ipad2 and portable printer when one is travelling?
No it won’t. You’d need an Airprint printer for that.
It simply does not work ! When I try to open it there appears a page with letters and all kind of stuff wich I don’t understand ! Excuse my english !
i’m struggling here – having red round this and watched a number of youtube clips, it appears that you load the airprint activator on another device other than an ipad or iphone! am i right or am i right? this is not result for me. i was hoping to have an app on my ipad that would recognise my wireless hp photosmart printer. anyone any ideas?
iPads will only print to Airprint enabled printers. Yes, the app runs on a computer and then shares the printer to the iPad.
thx wayne – i was hoping to avoid having to buy something but thats life.thx again
Is there a PC version of this? i.e. Can I install on a PC?
My PC is not wireless but my Canon Pixma MP640 is. can I download the airprint activator to my Pc and be able to print on my printer from my I pad?
Worked like a dream. Thank you!
Do i need to jailbreak my iPad for using this
No you don’t need to jailbreak your ipad for anything on this website and I don’t recommend jailbreaking at all.
Will the Air Print work with I Phones 3 and 4 also ??? or just with 5 ?
Older iphones fine but you need IOS5 – the latest software – on you iphone.
Keeps asking me for money! Not free anymore?
I have iPhone 4s and it just sits there when I select to download the AirPrint activator? How do I download the app?
This is not an app that runs on iPod/iPad/iPhone. This is a free program that runs on a Mac computer. Simples. Once installed this links your i-device to your Mac to enable you to print from your i-device via your Mac. Therefore, your Mac & printer has to be turned on and not in seep mode.
works great thx!
Thanks for the article will try it!
On an other note, I find funny people who don’t ”recommend” jailbreaking. Scaring people away from so many awesome tweaks, witch end up being implemented by Apple on subsequent ios’s , is a mystery to me. Being jailbroken is the best thing that ever happened to my phone.
I am unable download n install on my iPad…
Can anybody help me….
Read comments. There’re answers already. Is it so hard to read ‘em?
I got this to work in 3mins. Bonkers.
All this over the same wifi network.
iPhone 3GS iOS 6.0 JB
Epson XP 202
Mac Mini on 10.8.2 Moutain Lion
Works perfect. Took a whole 3 minutes to set up. Thanks for a great solution.
brilliant! saved me buying new printer, 3 minutes maximum to download and install. Thank you
If you have a Canon Printer with WIFI capabilities (mine is MX870, I use it to print anything wireless from my macbook pro), there’s an application for iPhones called Canon iEEP that lets you print pretty much anything that is on your iPhone (as long as you have it either in your photo album or you scanned something and saved it on your phone)… Its awesome and free!!
Why can I not find this app in the App Store?
This Rox!
Hi I have Samsung print how can I print from from my iPhone ?
Will this work if your computer isn’t a Mac?
No but there are solutions for PC.
I use FingerPrint by Collobos as the article mentions in the notes. Use it for both PC’s and Mac’s in my business and it works great. Well worth the $20, I love the evernote integration.
What a crack up, I can’t believe how patient you are Wayne. Great job!
Thanks for this – i had not realised by reading a lot of other sites that your PC always had to be on to print so in my case that just means i won’t bother, will just email myself and print from there. Many thanks for this good info : )
Thanks for this – i had not realised by reading a lot of other sites that your PC always had to be on to print so in my case that just means i won’t bother, will just email myself and print from there. Many thanks for this good info : )
I noticed that it says that this is a 14 day trial.
What happens after 14 days?
Great!
I wonder why this isn’t a standard feature for the iMac?
AirPrint Activator is called handyPrint and is not free. You get a 14 day trial then you gotta pay to play.
print n share is a good printing app as well, whether you have airprint or not or just want something quick and easy to use
Hi from one Shirl to another! I have downloaded Print n Share on my 4S (iOS6.0.1) but I haven’t a clue how to connect it to my printer for use with it. My printer is an Epson DX6000 but my iMac is still running system 10.4.11. (I presume I don’t need Cloud?) I will be downloading WePrint when I get home. Any tips or advice you or the other guys might have would be greatly appreciated :)
Thanks!
Am I the only one who, having converted to Mac and having converted a big number of family and friends, is increasingly noticing signs of MAC power to make us captive audience hurdling us into spending and having less freedom now that Steve Jobs is gone? Is it back to the dark ages with Mac? Only a few years ago, I would also only buy HP but after loads of regular issues with HP printers/scanners converted to Canon which has been great for us. Now I wonder whether they too are being bullied by Mac? This, after struggling for yet another day to get the good MP 640 printer/scanner to respond to ANY of the various Apple machines!
I am running OS X 10.5.8, and an IPhone 4s iOS 6.0.1. I downloaded and installed AirPrint Activator v2.0b13. I turned on printer sharing and internet sharing. AirPrint Activator sees my Canon iP1600 (not wireless, does it have to be?) BUT when I go to print from my iPhone it doesn’t find any printers. Is there a way to trouble shoot this?
No luck printing with this at all. Have a new mac and iphone 4, phone still doesn’t find the printer.
this not free, trial version for 14 days
tried worked paid!
My Mac Book Pro is connected to my printer through wifi, not a hard wire connection from printer to Mac, will this set up work?
On my iPhone 4s when I went to print, it showed my printer, but I hadn’t read the rest of the page about setting up Print/Scan under Preferences and it didn’t print.
Got this to work in under 5 minutes! Love it! Was going to have to buy my husband a new printer for xmas to go with his iPad.
Mac laptop 10.7.5
Canon MP600 printer
iPad 2
How do I print on my iPad if I don’t have an air printer or a Mac ?
Every time i try to print is showing a message “print is offline” when the is on and working fine. Can someone help me?
This works on my New iPad but I can’t get my wife’s iPad 2 to see my printer, Brother MFC9320c. New iPad sees printer but older iPad does not.
I will not even try to set up a printer for my apple devices! I just read about 10 comments and they all say it does not work! So im not even going to try!!!!!! HAHAHAHA……..
CWI don’t see any comments about Brother printers MFC-495CW and/or MFC-615CW. Any suggestions? Would appreciate your help. Thanks!
This should work for any printer.
I found an app called “Print n Share” which works ok for the pc. The drawback is that it doesn’t act as an airprinter exactly. You have to open whatever you want to print through the app itself, then print through the computer as described above for the mac. It can print webpages, email attachments, photos, screenshots – lots of things. If other apps have an “open with” feature, you can use that to open whatever you would like to print in the Print n Share app to print it. The app was around $7. Not free, but better than $20 like someone else mentioned. They seem to have really good support as well.
Well…..if you’ve got to link to a Mac in any case, it would seem to a simple-minded soul like me that you may as well just email info from your iPhone to your own pc, and print to your already-recognised Dinosaur Inkjet from there???!!!
Anything else sounds like a pure waste of time!!!
%O@
Well you can still print from the iPhone in one step once it’s set up, you don’t have to go back to your computer.
iMac OS 10.6.8 wired to printer. Printer sharing enabled.
iPhone 4, iOS 5.1.1–prints perfectly from any app that offers print option.
iPad 2, iOS 6.0.1– sees the printer but won’t print to it from any app.
Any suggestions? Thanks very much.