How to print from the iPad? How do I print from an iPad without AirPrint? What is AirPrint? How do I print from a mobile device to a printer? Can I print directly from my iPad to my printer? Is it possible to print from Apple units to Canon MP640? How do I send documents from iPad to network printer? How to print from iPhone to Cannon printer without airprint? How do I print with WiFi? How to print from iPad without AirPrint?
What is AirPrint?
With the Apple function AirPrint, you can print directly from your iPad or iPhone to a modern AirPrint-supported printer. You don’t need to download or install any drivers if your printer comes preprepared for AirPrint This is the easy way to print from any Apple device, but what if you don’t have airprint? What if you have an old HP Deskjet 840C printer without AirPrint, how can you print on that printer through your computer anyway?
Can you print from an iPad?
Yes, you can! You can either use the built-in AirPrint functionality, if your printer supports it, or you can download a specific app for your printer. The last resort is to download a commercial printer app like Printopia or Printer Pro, which enables you to print to any printer from your iPad or iPhone for a specific fee of course.
Most major and well-known printer brands offer their own iOS printer apps. This includes Canon, HP, Epson, Xerox, Brother and Lexmark. These printer apps let you print directly from your iOS devices over your home WiFi network.
Print from iPad to Canon MP640
You don’t need any fancy or expensive third-party apps to print from your Canon MP640 or other Canon printers without AirPrint. All you need to do is to download the Canon PRINT Inkjet/SELPHY app to your iPad or even iPhone.
More info about the Canon printing app can be found here
How to print from iPhone/iPad to HP printer without AirPrint
All new printer models from HP come with support for AirPrint. But how do you print from iPad to WiFi printer without AirPrint? If you have an older printing machine you will need to download the HP Smart app from the Apple app store.
If you have an ancient model like HP Deskjet 840 or similar you will not even have WiFi printing support. Then you will need to download some kind of app or program to your device or computer and then physically connect the printer with the USB cable, or even a serial cable if it’s truly primordial.
More info about HP printing can be found here
How to print from iPhone and iPad with USB cable
If your printer does not support AirPrint or WiFi then the only solution is to connect your phone to the printer with a cable of some kind.
Is it even possible to print from a phone with USB cable?
Yes, it is! But…
No, it isn’t. It should work in theory but Apple does not support it. With Android devices, you can connect a USB-OTG-cable directly between the device and the printer, but for Apple devices, this does not work because iOS does not support it. The iPhone and iPad are designed to print wirelessly without hardware connections.
But someone must have found or created a solution for this, right?
Of course, there are workarounds for this problem.
The solution is to get some kind of device that can act as an intermediary between your phone and your printer. One such solution is the xPrintServer which connects by USB cable to the printer and wirelessly to your Apple devices like iPhone or iPad.
You still need to print through the air from your Apple device but a box like xPrintServer solves the problem with connecting old printers that only have cable connections. In theory, this would also work for primordial printers with serial printer cables, but it would require a device like xPrintServer to also have a BIG serial port and also support for the serial data transmission, which of course is a limited market today. After all, a new printer costs less than the ink you use during a year. It’s probably cheaper and more convenient to just buy a new printer than to go the extra mile trying to connect really old printers…
Workaround – print from the computer
Another solution is of course to mail or AirDrop your docs or images to a computer that has better support for printing by cable to a cable-only printer.