How to Air Print to ANY printer from your iPod, iPad or iPhone

Ph7jKLD — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 06:04:06 +0000

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 application called ‘AirPrint Activator’ from netputing.

Click here to go to the netting page to find the latest AirPrint Activator.

Click here to download version 2 directly.

This will download a little application called ‘AirPrint Activator’. You may need to click on the ‘downloads’ button in Safari to find it.

Click on the 'Show Downloads' button to find it.

Now run airPrint Activator by double clicking the AirPrint Activator application. You should get a window that looks like the one below. Press the slider to ‘Turn On’ AirPrint.

In order for a printer to appear in AirPrint Activator you need to give people permission to print to it by sharing it. To do this go to System Preferences (Under the Apple Menu on the top left of your screen) and then Click on ‘Print & Scan’.

To find printer sharing click on 'Print & Scan'

In printer sharing preferences you need to select your printer on the left and then click the ‘Share this Printer’ box.

The final step - turn on Printer Sharing

The Printer should now appear in your iPad or iPhone printing menu!

How to share a printer from OS X to Windows XP

Ph7jKLD — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 12:34:29 +0000

To lodge my e-tax I have to run windows XP on my mac (using Virtual box) but needed to print it via a printer shared from my mac. I assume this will work sharing from any OS X mac to any Windows XP.
Here’s how to do it.

The Overview:

Basically you need to find two settings (Name: and Location:), they are here under printer setup in OSX:

and then you put them in here under windows XP:

It’s not exactly intuitive is it!!!

Here’s the more detailed instructions:

1. In OSX go to APPLE MENU and PREFERENCES and SHARING

2. Click the box that says Printer Sharing to turn on printer sharing.

3. Now go into printer preferences:

4. Click on the printer you want to share and click on ‘Open Print Queue’

5. Click on the little button that says ‘printer setup’

6. Here you find the magic settings – take not of the Name: and the Location:
HINT: you may wish to change them to something short and easy like I have if they are long. You can change them – it doesn’t matter what they are.

Now go into Windows XP.

1. Select Add a printer under Printers:

2. Select add a network printer:

3. The important bit – select ‘connect to this printer’ and type in slash slash location slash inkjet. (Ooh yes don’t you love windows!) like this:

It may ask for your password, but then the printer will appear!
This is windows though, even though the printer appeared, I had to reboot windows for it to actually but it did!

Macintosh How To » printer sharing

How to Air Print to ANY printer from your iPod, iPad or iPhone

How to share a printer from OS X to Windows XP