iPad - USE A THIRD-PARTY PRINTING APP

If you’re using AirPrint-compatible apps and have an AirPrintcompatible printer, you should have no difficulty printing from your iPad. However, as I mentioned earlier in this chapter, some printing situations fall outside the capabilities of AirPrint, and for those situations, a third-party app may be able to help.

Among the capabilities you can get from printing apps are these:

• Printing the contents of the iPad’s Clipboard (enabling you to copy, and then print, from apps that don’t have a Print command)

• Printing remotely (via the cloud), even over a 3G or EDGE connection

• Printing to PDF files, even from apps that don’t support AirPrint

• Printing calendar and contact data (Apple’s Calendar and Contacts apps don’t support AirPrint)

But I should point out that apps such as Maps that don’t create or view documents, and have no means of selecting and copying everything on the screen, are generally incompatible with all these printing methods. In some cases, you can work around this limitation by taking a screenshot (press the Sleep button and the Home button at the same time) and printing the resulting graphic, which appears in the Saved Photos
album in the Photos app.

Here are some of the third-party tools you can use to print from an iPad:

• Air Sharing HD: This iPad app is designed mainly for transferring, storing, and viewing files (see Transfer and View Documents), but it also does a splendid job of printing any of those documents—as well as documents sent from other apps, such as Mail attachments, via Document Support. Air Sharing HD can communicate directly with shared printers on a local network—no helper application required. (Avatron Software, $9.99)

• ePrint: This universal app prints directly to networked printers, no helper application required. It can print Web pages from its built-in browser; data from your Photos, Calendar, and Contacts apps; documents from an iDisk or WebDAV server; the contents of the Clipboard; and notes you’ve typed in the app. It also accepts input via Document Support. (Microtech, $2.99)

• PrintCentral for iPad: PrintCentral prints directly to Wi-Fi and AirPrint-compatible printers or, with a helper program running on your computer, to pretty much any other printer. If you’re not connected to the same network as your printer, it can forward print jobs over the Internet, even from a 3G or EDGE connection. It can print Mail attachments and other files received via Document Support, the Clipboard, photos, contacts, Web pages, and files transferred from your computer either through iTunes or using the app’s built-in Web server—and can “print” to PDF files with an extra in-app purchase of $1.99. (EuroSmartz, $9.99; a universal version, called PrintBureau, is also available for $12.99)

• Print Magic HD: This simple app can print directly to any networked printer, and can handle pictures and the contents of the Clipboard as input; a $1.99 in-app purchase adds the capability to “print” to PDF files. (Wellala, $4.99)

• PrinterShare Mobile: This app offers what it calls “remote printing”: It sends data such as photos, contacts, Web pages, or the contents of your Clipboard to your PrinterShare account in the cloud; from there, it can go to any computer in the world with the necessary helper software installed, and finally to any printer available from that computer. The service is free for first 20 pages, but then costs $4.95 for 100 pages, or $9.95 per month for unlimited pages. It can also print to nearby Wi-Fi and AirPrint-compatible printers without a helper application. (Dynamix Software, free)

Of these apps, I’ve been happiest with Air Sharing HD and PrintCentral. Interestingly, the former is a document transfer app with bonus printing features, and the latter is a printing app with bonus document transfer features!

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

iPad - USE A THIRD-PARTY PRINTING APP