Wireless/AirPrint printing from iOS and android devices

[cmacfarlane]

Has anyone tried to install the AirPrint service for windows on their clerk's computer? The provided printers do not have AirPrint available through the device and I'm looking at this as a possible solution for my stake. Any suggestions?

This is exactly what I'm trying to do. The clerk printers we have in our stake are all Xerox Phaser 3250's. They are wired network capable but do not support AirPrint natively. BTW, if you have the newer Xerox Phaser 3260 it does support AirPrint natively.

Anyway, The 3250 is connected directly to the Clerk PC. What I'm looking to do is share that printer through the PC to the rest of the network so that recommends can be printed from the Bishoipric members iPad. I'm looking for AirPrint software that can be installed on the PC to allow the iOS devices to see the printer. Of course, an extra added benefit of requiring some sort of authorization before being able to print would be nice, too.

Various web sites mention "AirPrint Installer." I've downloaded it but haven't tried it yet. It's very old (2011). It also requires Apples Bonjure Print Services to be installed on the PC since that includes the protocol to allow iOS to see AirPrint printers. I wanted to try it at home on a closed network before messing with the clerk computers - which hasn't happened yet

Has anyone tried this or anything else to get a printer connected to a PC to work as an AirPrint server?

[johnshaw]

The printer must support bonjour services that allow wireless printing for mobile devices.

[russellhltn]

I'd be very careful about sharing out the printer on the clerk's computer. I believe that by default (meaning, unless you do some registry hacks), you'd also activate the "administrative share" of the C drive. In this situation, that would be a MAJOR security issue.

[johnshaw]

I had this successfully setup a few years back, but a church firewall was implemented which blocked that port. I spent 6 months with the desktop and security teams trying to get the port allowed but gave up under the strain of the minutia involved compared to the level of effort it required. Which is by design it seems.

[michaelcox]

If your current printer doesn't support AirPrint you could get something like this (http://www.apple.com/shop/product/HJ0P2 ... int-server) or get a new printer that supports AirPrint. I would NOT suggest changing the Church computer security settings.

[russellhltn]

Note that computers and printers are supplied by FM and should not be bought with budget funds.

[cmacfarlane]

Great comments everyone. I think what I really want to do is use something like the Lantronix xPrint server to allows network printers to be seen by iOS devices. However, those things are about twice the price as they were about 18 months ago. I can't justify spending that much on a function that I think will be seldom used. Has anyone seen an alternative to the Lantronix print servers?

Maybe what I should do is find an AirPrint server that runs on a Raspberry Pi or something like that. At least that way there's no data on it to worry about. On the other hand it's another computer on the network that would need to be kept up-to-date. Anyone try the Reaspberry Pi method?

[johnshaw]

Raspberry pi is what I would suggest

[johnshaw]

I spent some time this last week looking at what Windows 10 might have for Bonjour/Airprint. The bonjour software is on the image. In c:\program files\Bonjour Print something there is a printer wizard that will take a NETWORK ATTACHED printer and share it over airprint (depending on the printer you may need to install drivers again). So, in the stake office this was pretty easy because the Stake Office has a Network Multi-Function Printer. However, I also had to Add a Rule to the Sophos Firewall that Allowed the Incoming UDP Port 5353. After doing this I was able to airprint for the stake.

For wards, not so much, I have each Meetinghouse Library/Material Center setup with Network printing, so the ward computer will airprint for that, but not for the local attached USB printer. I found in the documentation of the Bonjour for Windows software that it will only work for Network attached or printers plugged into something air-apple-ish.

Problem for the Stake Office: - It's been several years since I did this back in my old stake and the Church would overwrite the firewall rules, I don't know if that is the case or not. I spent about 6 months trying to work with the desktop management team back then (that's when the firewall was locked down a ton) to try and get it going, but after 6 months of effort I was done waiting and just cried myself to sleep at the nonsensical nature of it all.

Does anyone know of software out there that will install a Bonjour Service that will work with a locally attached Printer?

[cmacfarlane]

Thanks for the info on Win 10. That will give me even more incentive to upgrade all the clerk computers to Win 10 as soon as possible. The majority of our stakes clerk printers are networkable - even though they aren't connected that way today - so it sounds like a viable solution that I can try. Thanks!