Enable AirPrint Support for Shared Printers

If you happen to have an HP ePrint-compatible printer already on your network, you can skip ahead to Print From an AirPrint-Capable App. Otherwise, you must perform a preliminary step to make printing from your iPad possible: install a third-party sharing tool.

Fundamentally, all these utilities do approximately the same thing: they make local and network printers visible, and available, to AirPrint over your Wi-Fi network. However, they go about it in somewhat different ways, and some of them offer useful additional features too.


Mac OS X AirPrint Utilities:
• AirPrint Activator: This no-frills utility lets you make any printer that your Mac can see available to AirPrint. Unfortunately, it also requires you to remove, re-add, and share each printer manually— a tedious process, especially if you have several printers. AirPrint Activator requires both Mac OS X 10.6.5 Snow Leopard or later and iTunes 10.1 or later. (http://netputing.com/airprintactivator/donationware)

• FingerPrint: After installing FingerPrint, any printers that are already shared on your network become available to AirPrint—no additional configuration required. In addition to printing, it also lets you send any document from your iPad to your Dropbox, to a specified folder on your Mac, or, for graphics, directly to iPhoto— wirelessly, without having to connect via iTunes. (http://www.collobos.com/, $7.99)

• Printopia: Printopia lets AirPrint work with any printer connected to your Mac, whether or not it’s already shared. Like FingerPrint, it can also send documents directly to your Dropbox or to a folder on your Mac. And, although it lacks a direct-to-iPhoto feature, it adds another useful capability—“printing” to a PDF or PNG file on your Mac. And, it even works with Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard. For all these reasons it’s my current favorite of these utilities. (http://ecamm.com/mac/printopia/, $9.95)


Windows AirPrint Utilities:
• AirPrint Installer: This utility requires iTunes 10.1 or later and works with printers that you’ve shared from your Windows PC. (http://jaxov.com/2010/11/download-airprint-installer-forwindows-7-xp-vista/, free)

• AirPrint Activator for Windows: The description is in German, but the software is available in English, German, and French. (http://www.iblueray.de/viewforum.php?f=21, free)

Source of Information : TidBITS-Take Control of Working with Your iPad 2011