I have HP Laserjet 1020 connected to Airport Express and, after installing HP drivers, can print from MacBook Air. But there is no way to print from iOS devices because they need AirPrint compatible printer. Firstly, i installed handyPrint on mac, and everything was fine, but it works only when mac is on. So I tried and Printer Pro Lite application on iPhone. App can see printer but doesn't print anything. So I try to understand is there any possible way to tune my printer as AirPrint printer to print whenever I want? Or maybe install the right app on iPhone which can print?
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How different is the HP 1020 from HP 8500 or 6500 or 2600N? My recollection is that they don't even have a network connection, no?– bmike ♦Dec 27, 2013 at 14:08
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3 Answers
Printer Pro won't solve the problem because
Printer Pro is the application that lets you wirelessly print from the iPhone. It can print directly to many Wi-Fi printers and to any printer attached to your Mac or PC via helper application installed on your computer.
If you search for "HP print" in the App Store, there are quite a lot of hits. HP All-in-One Printer Remote looks kind of helpful (but I can't test it myself).
answered Dec 27, 2013 at 13:56
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1This would work for HP printers that actually have a network connection. The 1200 likely has USB and older serial connections only... The last time I checked that app, it wouldn't recognize printers connected via AirPort to the network.– bmike ♦Dec 27, 2013 at 14:08
If you don't mind jailbreaking, you can install TruPrint. This will let you AirPrint to most printers connected to a network automatically.
TruPrint
With TruPrint, you can print to most network printers! Simply install, and use Apple's built-in print menu. New printers will now show up thanks to TruPrint!
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I've heard good things about this, but will it see a printer that AirPort express is sharing on the network?– bmike ♦Dec 27, 2013 at 14:10
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@bmike Yes, as far as I know. I used to use this with my old Canon that had no network capabilities at all — used the USB to connect it to the back of my old BT router and TruPrint saw it immediately. Worked really well, and the TruPrint CUPS lets you set up all the printer settings on the fly for each print job.– grg ♦Dec 27, 2013 at 14:15
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I've not seen any emulation software for printers that "tune" them to support the AirPrint network printing protocol on top of old HP hardware. That would be workable for a network printer, but the 1200 doesn't even have any network hardware, so you still need a device similar to AirPort to advertise the printer on the network as an AirPrint device and then subsequently translate all the print actions into legacy printing language or possibly postscript.
My guess as to your best bet is to pick a reputable AirPrint software package to run on OS X since it's cheaper than the alternatives.
There are many others besides printopia and possibly packages that run on other OS, but for my time+hassle equation it fits a sweet spot. It's easy to ask someone if $20 is worth the hassle of saving all their files to dropbox or similar and then printing them later. People also seem to get that printing won't work if the computer bridging the AirPrint request to the legacy printing format is not running.
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1On an Apple network where the router does bonjour sleep proxy, yes. Clearly, the network port is not listening while the computer is sleeping, but as long as the Air has WOL capable WiFi or ethernet, Apple routers will detect the iOS device print request to the print sharing port and wake the Mac.– bmike ♦Dec 27, 2013 at 14:23
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I used handyPrint, which works the similar way as Printopia, so it doesn't solve the problem anyway. Bonjoir sleep proxy won't help because I often leave my mac in university lab. Jan 3, 2014 at 18:11