Ask Slashdot: Best Way To Print From an Android Tablet? 203
KowboyKrash writes "Does any Slashdotter know how to print from an Android tablet? I have read about Google Cloud Print, but will it work from all (or at least most) apps? Is there a better solution? A little background: With my laptop being four years old, and the battery failing, I want to replace it with a device with 10 hours of battery. I am purchasing an Asus Transformer Prime after Christmas as a gift to myself; my plan is to replace my laptop completely for portable computing. I've already selected several apps that should meet my needs, including Polaris Office, and TeamViewer to remotely access my desktop. So are there any printing solutions for Android? Printing to my network printer at home is good enough."
easiest is best right? (Score:4, Funny)
xerox machine
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I was going to go with hiring a scribe....
Best Way To Print From an Android Tablet? (Score:4, Insightful)
Use it to order a real computer from the Amazon site. :-)
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pastebin, bitches
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Since Androids have wifi, why would it be difficult to print to a networked printer? I would assume that since the submitter has a printer he also has a computer. Even if he can't print directly to the printer, uploading to a computer and printing from there should be brain-dead simple and easy. As a last resort he could send the text to himself via email, that's how I got pictures from my phone to my computer before I bought a bluetooth dongle.
Your comment was doubly funny for me, because at work they rece
Re:easiest is best right? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:easiest is best right? (Score:4, Informative)
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Yeah, my dad did a graphics Ph.D. in the late 80s, and to get good renders for publication, he aimed a good camera at a good monitor.
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If you looked in computer magazines from those days, you'd see some companies selling these black open-ended pyramids. The peak had a camera mount (and a hole for the lens, of course), and you put the big open end over the monitor face; the purpose was to eliminate all the reflected light.
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Huh, I thought it was a really original idea when I saw this product a few weeks ago: http://www.lenskirt.com/lenskirt/ [lenskirt.com]
This one's aimed at taking photos through windows, though, so it'd be smaller than the monitor ones.
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Before slideshow software this was how we made slideshows. No joke - special camera and all that.
I expect it was really an issue of rare and pricy hardware, not software at all. Circa 1965 I used a CRT attached to an IBM 9094 that wrote on 35mm film with a software library for FORTRAN II to produce slides for presentations. Part of the job was making 8x10 prints of the slides in the frat house darkroom fo my boss to review. My boss had a good budget and could pay the rediculously high per-second prices for use of the equipment.
Once graphic displays became cheap, taking pictures of them was probabl
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You could also get an attachment for taking photos of slides to transfer them back to film so you can develop them as prints. Before VCRs people would point a film camera at their TV screen, and splice wiring into the speaker to record the sound to tape. The BBC used to make film transfers of TV shows to sell to overseas broadcasters using a special camera too, and when the programme was originally in colour it made very fine noise on the film that was invisible when broadcast but which has now been used to
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on the apple 2, the //c at least, you could simply switch the pc off and on immediately, and find the screenshot in the hgr2 area. It was sometimes corrupted so you needed to do it twice andpick the clean lines.
Cloud Print (Score:5, Informative)
Cloud print works for me very well from my phone and tablet. If printing to a home printer is good enough then it should work just fine for you. Does for me.
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Cloud print works for me very well from my phone and tablet. If printing to a home printer is good enough then it should work just fine for you. Does for me.
Except doesn't Cloud Print require a PC that's connected to the printer to be running as a print server? I'm told there are a few printers that have Cloud Print servers built-in now, but not many. Submitter didn't say whether he had a dedicated workstation at home.
Old laptop with dead battery = fine print server (Score:4, Insightful)
Maybe he doesn't have a dedicated workstation at home, but he's about to have a spare laptop that's more than fast enough to be a print server, and the dead battery won't matter if it's plugged in all the time.
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If it works, for most people it's the end of it. For me, getting a tablet as powerful as a desktop pc of a few years ago and being unable to perform many of the tasks such desktop could do, is sad.
HP eprint Home and Biz (Score:2, Informative)
Use it all the time on my phone
Most apps don't have built-in printing (Score:3)
Replacement (Score:5, Insightful)
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I agree that tablets aren't a replacement for desktops and notebooks, but it was only a few years ago that if you wanted to utilise any of the useful features of your Canon printers from Linux (e.g.: print on a CD/DVD) you had to pay a $30 tax to TurboPrint. Thankfully CUPS has improved significantly since then.
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Or you could have just bought a less lame brand of printer.
CUPS really didn't change that. It still pays to pay attention to what you but. It's especially true for Linux and MacOS but it occasionally applies to Windows too.
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Indeed. I would suggest getting a latest EEE PC instead. You get a working windows/linux machine with 7-8 hours of battery life for half the price of the transformer.
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Asus still sells EEE PC with Linux pre-installed?
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I don't know, but what stops you from installing it even if it's a windows machine? I believe drivers for pretty much everything that netbook has on board are available and microsoft tax on it is very small as it's sold with w7 starter.
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Nothing. But that still registers as a license sale at Microsoft and Asus, unless i attempt the rigamarole of getting a refund on the Windows i am not using...
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Oh, pshaw. I paid for a monitor connector on my notebook that I'll never use either. So what if it comes with Windows? I take glee in wiping Windows off of a computer. I'm not Microsoft's customer, Acer is. Acer could have sold me a naked notebook and pocketed an extra ten bucks profit. It's their loss, not mine.
Re:Replacement (Score:5, Informative)
You must have an iPad or something.
On my Samsung Tab 10.1, I just did a search for "printer" in the Market and found at least a dozen fully functional free apps with excellent user reviews. There is at least one that was made by each major printer manufacturer, I assume that's because they're selling printers and ink, that's why they're supplying their own apps fully functional for free (with not even a paid equivalent), but Cloud Print seems to be the best one since it relies on Google Cloud Printing Service and just seems to be universal (and that one is totally free as well).
This is not to say I disagree with your main point. A tablet is cool, but it's a not a good productivity tool unless you're a salesman or something. Mine has become exclusively an entertainment device these days, I use it for playing games, reading manga, watching videos, listening to/remote controlling podcasts/music, casually browsing photos/the web, casually playing with the gestures of the UI interface, basically almost anything but actual real work.
And yes, I do realize the Asus Transformer comes with a keyboard, but the problem is that, even with a keyboard, it's still a very seductive device that seems to have been optimized for playing games and consuming media first and foremost.
If you want an actual real useful light device with instantaneous startup time/connection to the web, and extremely long battery life, and assuming your needs are as simple as browsing the web, working on documents online, etc, I'd suggest you take a look at the latest Samsung Chromebook. When my relatives visit, they love my tablet and they also play with it, but they actually use my Chromebook to get actual work done (instead of their own laptops that start up just so damn slowly). Plus, the Chromebook comes with 2 years of free data (the 100 MB quota per month is laughable, but it comes in handy during the times I'm out of wifi range, and I just need a quick bit of information without wanting to activate my mobile hotspot, and the way it's done, the indicator/notifier for data consumption is very well done and very transparent despite the well known evilness of Verizon, there is actually no chance of unknown overages that will come bite me in the ass later on).
This is not to say that the original poster will actually follow my advice. I don't think that he will. The very fact that the tablet is so seductive a device, and the fact that the Chromebook is not seductive at all -- it's just useful, is probably the main reason he'll insist on getting a tablet anyway.
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I believe it's the NON TETHERING that is the dealbreaker here. Battery life keeps you from experiencing full freedom that a tablet can provide. He's got his apps. Instant-on is icing on the cake.
Re:Replacement (Score:4, Interesting)
Not that long ago, no one thought notebooks could replace a desktop computer. I believe it will be possible for tablets to replace most of systems - Apple and Google certainly want to redefine computing.
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No, young geeks need tablets to feel cool. After a certain point in life one realizes that trying to be cool is uncool. The cool kids don't try, usually they're dtring to be different, not blend in.
I discovered this when patty was a teenager. She always strove to be different, and was constantly annoyed because the other kids copied what she did/wore etc.
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I go with the historically safe play. They're quite handy for some things, worthless for others, and what they're used for will change over time.
I don't much care what a
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I'm pretty sure that when they were new, a titanium PowerBook could as well. At least create the opportunity, anyway, alas for most geeks that would not be sufficient.
That time is probably already past for tablets, they are too common now.
And that's only partially true. A better camera (and lens) will allow a good photographer to get shots he
"gift to myself" (Score:4, Funny)
Do you also gift wrap it and keep it a surprise till Christmas?
Re:"gift to myself" (Score:4, Funny)
We're here at Slashdot. We've replaced ThatsMyNick's funny comment with one that makes it seem like he's being a total dick.
Let's see if anyone can tell the difference!
Google's cloud printing was intended for Android (Score:3, Interesting)
If you can access Google's cloud printing (you can) you're all set.
Free... so long as you don't mind sharing your data with Google (which you'd already be doing if you're using their cloud service).
I'm curious to see what better (faster!) ideas appear on this thread... There have to be better ways.
Or, at least, more interesting.
Printershare (Score:2)
Right here. [android.com]
No printing sucks (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:No printing sucks (Score:5, Insightful)
Because nokia's "tablets" were worker's machines. Modern tablets are toys. These have very different needs and were one of the major reasons why n-series of tablets was a very small niche product while modern tablets sell millions.
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I don't know if they're toys, I think they're just optimized for different tasks than laptops. Tablet interfaces and form factors prioritize information consumption over information creation.
I don't think very many people are *replacing* their laptops with tablets, except those that exclusively want to do information-consumption-centric stuff like browsing the web, listening to music and watching videos. Tablets are also excellent for reading email, although they're awkward for responding to email. I'm wond
About Polaris (Score:4, Informative)
Check with the printer manufacturers (Score:3, Informative)
I recently found out Brother has an app for printing from Android and IOS [brother-usa.com]. Maybe the other printer manufacturers do too?
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I suspect that is the way to go for printing on Android. This because the app can tie into the intent system, so that there is no requirement for print support in Android as a whole.
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yep, Epson has one too, though it won't print pdfs for some reason. I guess because they expect you to just use it to send images to your printer. However, I use a WP4545 wireless printer and you just send whatever you like to it, from anywhere.
Epson also comes with a email printing service - you send your document to your own, unique email address and it forwards it to your printer. I don't have it set up, but it seems a nice idea.
PrintBot works nicely for me (Score:3, Informative)
https://market.android.com/details?id=net.jsecurity.printbot&hl=en [android.com]
Note: I have no connection to the author, and haven't yet needed to try the paid version myself, so I refer to the (extremely restricted) free version.
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Don't give in to masochism. (Score:2, Informative)
iPads can do this without paying extra money for a printing app. If your printer isn't "AirPrint" compatible, just run this program once on the mac that shares it: http://download.cnet.com/AirPrint-Activator/3000-18487_4-75327225.html
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PrinterShare (Score:3)
I use PrinterShare. It requires a service running on a Windows box, but you can print through the service to a printer from outside the network, which means I can print to my home computer (for instance) from anywhere in the world I can get signal. Available from android store. Not affiliated, just a user.
Bad idea from the start (Score:2)
Replacing a laptop with a tablet, any tablet, is a nasty compromise. You'll miss your 4 year old laptop the first time you have to do any work on the tablet.
If you're like most people who have this idea, you'll wind up carrying both the tablet and the old laptop (or buying a new laptop) and then one day you'll just forget the tablet at home, and within a couple months the tablet will live on your coffee table and rarely leave the house.
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not so far...
I completely replaced my laptop with an Acer Iconia tablet + USB keyboard + wireless mouse (keyboard and mouse only used for "serious" computing tasks) and haven't looked back yet. I've been using that setup for about 4 months with no problems.
Of course I still use my desktop when I'm at home, though I have found that even that can now go several days without getting powered up as I do more and more on the tablet.
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I am speaking from the experience after mgmt decided our IT dept must deploy iPads to 300+ mid level types company wide earlier this year.
For about a month, iPads at every meeting, out on every roadwarrior's trip (and dropped a few times, oops), always seen on desks in the office, etc.
Today... they live in drawers, under stacks of paperwork, "i forgot it at home". haven't seen anyone carry one into a conference room in recent memory.
And guess what our first major purchasing request of fiscal year 2012 is?
2
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iOS != Android? Still, the choice of office related apps on Android tablets may be limited at this time.
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it is true that ios != android, but i don't think either could solve the fundamental problems the tablet form factor has when used as a primary computing device (aka laptop replacement). typing sucks unless you use an external kb, but to carry one you're now basically taking up the same space as a laptop. not being able to run any real software sucks. maybe the win8 tablets will address that. limited local storage sucks, sad fact of life is that travellers cannot always be online even in the year 2011.
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The "real software" claim is neither here nor there, as apps are software. The biggest difference is that they do not share the decade long legacy that wintel software do. If you could install and run open/libre-office, would you then consider Android running "real" software?
As for local storage, consider the Archos products that has the option of a HDD.
All in all tho, i guess the option to replace depends on the expect work to be performed. Looking back, it seems your management jumped on a fad. This in mu
I have an idea (Score:4, Insightful)
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That would require buying a tablet for everyone who plans to read the document
No it doesn't. It requires everyone who needs to read the document to have access to a device capable of displaying it. But, I don't know where you got the idea that single-digit-year-old children are incapable of using tablets [youtube.com].
Dropped, sit on, stepped on, etc. (Score:2)
It requires everyone who needs to read the document to have access to a device capable of displaying it.
And even that isn't yet guaranteeable in 2011. Not everybody carries a laptop, tablet, e-reader, or smartphone. Or what scenario am I missing?
Nor are these tablets necessarily rugged enough
I don't know where you got the idea that single-digit-year-old children are incapable of using tablets
Perhaps I underemphasized "rugged". A careful 3-year-old can use an iPad 2, but a less careful one will likely drop it, sit on it, step on it, etc.
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http://www.toysrus.com/product/index.jsp?productId=12351154 [toysrus.com] They say 6 year old and up tho...
For a child to carry elsewhere (Score:2)
Well if you're trying to figure out how to print from a tablet, then obviously you have one you can use with your child. It's called parenting.
Unless you're trying to print something for your child to show to somebody else while the child is at school or a play date.
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Thumbs up!!
100% agree.
+5 Insightful
Tell this to my wife or my employer.
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Instead of trying to figure out how to print, how about, in 2011, we figure out how to NOT PRINT?????
Best idea I've heard yet.
And yet, here we are...2011 and still killing trees. I lost count at how many times I've heard "paperless office" predictions or product promises. Sad part is they forgot about the human factor.
Here's an idea to get users to stop printing. Put a single printer in the entire building. In the basement. I promise you that lazy will win the paperless office war for you.
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Best advice given so far...
You know what else tablets don't have? DVD-Burners, TV-Tuner cards, FM Radios, 7.1 surround sound, gigE ports, rs232 ports, etc.
The whole idea of a tablet is to get rid of all that legacy. If you want it, you get a computer or a laptop instead. The fact that tablets sell so well indicates most people are just fine without any of it. That doesn't make it a toy, far from it, it makes it a cutting-edge design.
10 years ago, printing was a huge issue, and I thought PDAs that didn't
I know, I'm boring (Score:5, Interesting)
and yet, I say it up and down, everywhere: I'll buy the first tablet that runs Debian natively (make that Ubuntu, or anything like that). I buy a tablet, price doesn't matter too much, the day I can install some Linux-Distro on it (please, spare all of the us the 'Android-is-Linux' nonsense comments). I don't need coolness, I am cool. I need OpenOffice on my tablet, no Google-Docs, and I need printing. Not a single Cent for some app, no new printer. CUPS is on any reasonable Linux-Distro, and that's what I am waiting for.
Thanks to the original submitter. I was almost tempted to buy a tablet today, despite of all my good intentions as above. I didn't even consider I would not be able to print. Now I know that I am not going to buy a tablet for the time being.
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Sorry, I forgot the second part of my request of sparement: I usually add 'chroot-nonsense'. Because I don't want to load some loop-mounted image. I want to insert any (u)SD with *nix on it and go through the installer. I don't understand. I could install, and have been using Ubuntu on my OMAP4-pandaboard off (u)SD for one year now. Why not on a similar tablet?
Mark S., what do you say?
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Many Archos tablets can be setup to dual boot with Android and Armstrong Linux (a full fledge desktop Linux). This isn't some hack, it is supported by the manufacturers.
I have a Archos tablet which is 4.3 inches and I can plug it to my computer monitor through mini-HDMI, use a full sized Blutooth keyboard and mouse and boot a full desktop Linux on it.
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Heh, i had forgotten that the smaller Archos tablets had video out.
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Asus has a fancy tablet PC with a wacom tablet in... for about $1200.
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Just Use Ubuntu (Score:2)
It does. I have one of the original TF101s, and Ubuntu runs relatively well on it, though it's worth noting the kernel port is still in development.
The Transformer (Prime) has a full keyboard, so if you're buying it as a laptop replacement, just dual boot Ubuntu. If you only have the tablet half, then you might want to go with Gnome 3. Android is rather limited, so I can guarantee you'll get frustrated with it the moment you want to do anything non-trivial.
Here's a quick summary of what's working so far:
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You could just say that you would like to run GNU on it.
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You could install Linux on tablets 15 years ago. But you don't really want to because most Linux apps aren't designed for use with a tablet.
The problem with Android is not that they developed a new tablet UI for it or that it isn't Debian; the problem is that they completely broke with existing languages and toolkits.
Brother Printer (Score:3)
I have a Brother Printer and Brother has an iOS and Android app for printing. So far it has worked flawlessly.
cloud print has been spotty for me so far (Score:2)
Wireless Brother printer (Score:2)
Wireless Brother printer with iprint (the driver for wireless Brother printers)
Teamviewr on ipad is terrible (Score:2)
CUPS (Score:2)
Android is Linux. I use Linux at work, at home, in my car, on my tablet, etc, etc.
It would be really nice if Android had CUPS support. That would make printing really easy for me :)
Why? (Score:2)
So the question is - why are you printing? What do you need in hard copy?
It's nearly 2012. Haven't we moved past this for day-to-day? (Unless, of course, you're in a career that requires a lot of paperwork to be physically signed on a regular basis - given the content of your post and the fact that you're posting it here, I think that's unlikely.)
Personally I've found that one of the great things about tablets is that they've eliminated the final few reasons I had for printing documetns.
I realize that eve
Follow these steps (no app download required) (Score:4, Funny)
1. Take a photo of the iPad screen.
2. Connect camera to a Laptop and download photo.
3. Connect laptop to the LAN, email the photo to your desktop PC
4. Go to your PC from your PC open the photo in the viewer.
5. Copy the photo. Paste it into a word document.
6. Print the word document. Your done.
7. Optional step: Fax it to the intended recipient, or if the printer/scanner has a scan-to-email function use that.
I hope this helps you. This kind of thing certainly helped people my former workplace at least feel productive.
Time to turn off Ask Slashdot (Score:2)
We've had recent questions about cloud services, duplicates about which router to buy, and now a question about how to print.
Time to turn off Ask Slashdot. Someone let me know if the quality goes back up and we get more interesting questions.
sorry, missed something (Score:2)
As a future buyer of a tablet, this is something I didn't consider, printing, I just took it for granted that you could print via an office LAN network.
Re:WiFi enabled printer? (Score:4, Informative)
You can do it via dropbox. See http://www.labnol.org/internet/print-from-mobile-phones/17827/
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I guess the disappointment is mostly on my end. I'm a huge Linux user and fan of OSS in-general. I'm hoping regular consum
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A far easier solution is that instead of having to buy new hardware every time a problem long solved in PC world comes up, you buy a PC.
You'll save on device itself, then you'll save on both money needed to buy new hardware that is at least somewhat compatible, as well as time needed to fuck around with this new hardware until it starts to actually work as intended.
Buying trouble (Score:2)
A far easier solution is that instead of having to buy new hardware every time a problem long solved in PC world comes up, you buy a PC.
No, what is easier is buying a post-PC solution to a problem that has plagued PC users since the dawn of time. Printers on PCs (or Macs, no platform war here) have always sucked
Also remember that post-PC is not SANS-PC. My WiFi printer works great with any other computer, better in fact than my print-served printers ever did.
Feel free to go backwards all you like. I'm ra
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Yes, nothing ever goes obsolete in the PC world, and you never have to fuck around with it.
Post brought to you from Bizarro World.
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> You know what? Who cares! Aren't computers and various peripherals surrounding them supposed to make your life easier?
This is why a new tablet should not disallow you from using your old printer.
> Buying a WiFi printer makes life WAY easier for everyone in the household, from iPad users to laptop users of all sorts.
No, not really. Any normal printer can be hooked up to a real PC and you can network it any way you like. Windows has done this for a long time and Macs have done it for even longer.
It's
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This is why a new tablet should not disallow you from using your old printer.
It doesn't. I could have easily. But remember the part about not sucking? The old printer worked OK, sure, but it relied on the computer working and then the print server working too. Now I'm done with it all, if all computers in the house are dead or toast or whatever it just doesn't matter - nor does the printer have to be BY a computer, and even greater advantage.
No, not really.
Sorry but you are utterly delusional. It makes
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You are a dishonest idiot.
> Windows has done this for a long time and Macs have done it for even longer.
You removed this and started ranting about Linux. This isn't about Linux. This is about the fact that EVERY REAL PLATFORM does network printing and it's pretty damn trivial to set up.
> It makes life 100x easier for the casual home computer network tech guy.
No it doesn't. All it does is create another artificial barrier. It creates another point of failure. It's another thing where you have to worry
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Yeah. "Email it to print it". That's usable alright. [/sarc]
The excuses people make for this crap. Stuff they would be the first to whine about if it happened outside of their little branded bubble.
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Both HP and Brother have android apps which will print to their wireless printers.
The HP ePrint printers require you to have your printer connected to the internet, hand out its control to HP, then signup your Andoid device using your Google Account, and then prints your private documents ... YES via HP ... over the internet!
Thats a no-no for me, i want to print from my Android to my HP Printer via the local WiFi. It should be possible.
I will try the ePrint app, as i understand from the android market it does work this way.
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http://www.newlaunches.com/entry_images/0911/15/Samsung-DROID-Prime-Android-4-0-device-1.jpg [newlaunches.com]
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4. Carve your message into the casing of the iPad. ...
5. with a roller (or a pad of leather, such as an iPad case), dab ink evenly over the message.
6. Press the iPad to a clean sheet of paper to reproduce your message. Repeat as often as desired.
7. Sell "uniquely customised" iPad (sounds like a menstruation product) and use funds to repurchase Android device.
8.
9. Profit (for someone)