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My iPad can now print!

Game_Writer

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I can now print directly from my iPad to my new HP D110a printer without using a computer or any cables. It's pretty cool! :)

The new HP110a wireless Internet printer doesn't require any drivers or any cables except power. The printer was assigned an email address at the factory and I merely have to email documents to it (of less than 5MB) and it will print them, as long as the printer has a wifi-connection.

I tried printing from two iPad apps that allow you to email your documents: Apple's Pages and an app called Notepad Pro that allows you to type text and draw images. In a matter of a few minutes, I had hard copies of my documents that were created on my iPad and never existed on a "real" computer. Sweet!

I did have to create a new gmail account to get it to work, though. While my YahooMail account would print if I sent messages directly from the email program on the iPad, Yahoo seems to intercept the messages from the apps and doesn't send them out. Very annoying. But gmail worked fine.

Also, if you just want to print text, or even just an email message, the printer prints a cover page for each job sent, which contains the content of the email message. No headers, no dates or times, or email paths, just the text of the message, as if the text were a document. So you can just send a text email to the printer and it will print that for you, even without adding an attachment.

Unfortunately, the range of supported document types is small, but includes the Microsoft Office suite (Word, Excel, etc.), as well as PDF and simple text. I don't recall if there were others. But both of my iPad word processors can export to Word and PDF, so I'm good to go.

I'm rather pleased. I bought the printer today at Wal-Mart for $89.00. I'm not expecting to print my novel with it, so the possibly expensive print cartridges isn't really going to bother me, I don't think.

You are also supposed to be able to print to the printer over your local wifi connection from a computer, but I couldn't get that to work. I installed the driver on my computer (which is required for direct wifi printing, but not email printing) and the driver was fine, but when it was looking for the printer IP address, it couldn't find it. I know it was the right address, because the printer tells you the address in the little display on the front. You're supposed to just type that into your computer and it works. Well, it doesn't. Oh well, that's not why I bought the printer--and I can still email documents from my desktop computer anyway.

Oh, you can also set up a list of approved email addresses from which your printer can accept documents. Or you can leave it open so anybody can send them.

Curiously, the printer comes inside a specially-made tote bag for portability, along with a little shaving-kit-sized bag for the power supply (which is lightweight). This thing was designed for portability! Very nice! I took some photos that I'll attach, if I can figure out how.

So, I think it's very cool and certainly an excellent tool to add to my iPad.

Dar
 

NumbLock

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Any further experience? Or maybe a mini-review?

I have a friend who is refusing to get an iPad until printing is easy.
 

winwaed

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And what about printing web pages? When you email a webpage from safari it is (sensibly) sent as a URL.

Also not sure if I have space for a second printer - especially one which will probably have a short life.

Richard
 

chewan

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I hope to see iOS 4.0 for iPad (multitasking) come with direct printing through wifi or cable to pc just like printing in network. So we can just print anything like webpage on Safari etc etc. No need to buy any software
 
OP
Game_Writer

Game_Writer

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I haven't used my new printer a lot, but I can answer a few questions. If you're printing from a word processor, you're pretty much going to see on paper what you see on the pages on your screen. The printer prints .doc and .PDF files, so when you mail them, they just get printed as they appear--at least that's my experience so far.

The only way you don't get wysiwyg is if you just send a text email and print that, which ends up printing like a simple text file.

Printing web pages doesn't really work, as far as Ive seen, but you can always take a screen shot with your iPad and send that as a photo. That should work, but i haven't tried it. I HAVE sent photos from my photo album with 4x6 photo paper inserted into the printer and it prints them very well. It's SO EASY to take a photo on my iPhone, mail it to my printer, and have a 4x6 snapshot in a matter of minutes. (Yes, it's great for iPhones, as well as iPads!)

For what it is and what it's marketed for, i think it does very well.
 

Al Rogers

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Any further experience? Or maybe a mini-review?

I have a friend who is refusing to get an iPad until printing is easy.

Go to HP website they have the printer on display,and on sale. After I get back from vacation I will buy one.

Al.
 

Anil_Trinidad

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Isn't there a $9-10 app that you can get to print with? If you have a printer connected to your home (or other) network, either wireless or ethernet wired - you should be able to print to it, shouldn't you?
 

iVan

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Isn't there a $9-10 app that you can get to print with? If you have a printer connected to your home (or other) network, either wireless or ethernet wired - you should be able to print to it, shouldn't you?

The thing is that those apps don't work with every make of printers. Kodaks and Brothers are not supported. If you have later model HPs you're in luck.

And, they require your computer to be on because they depend on the installed drivers.
 

vsstanton

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I have print magic with an hp 4385 and it works fine...did the test before I bought the program...pictures are awesome...anything else goes to a whiteboard and is then printed...not a lot of options or formatting available bit is there when I need it!
 

Smithy12

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The next update For the iPad will now have a print feature built into the ios 4.2
 

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