![]() What was originally called Fingerprint has now been updated to Presto. Though I mostly use Printopia for printing out documents, it’s helpful to have these additional features available when I do want to use them. This is like taking a document on my phone and opening it in an application that’s on my Mac. In addition to printing to a folder, Printopia also allows me to “print” directly to an application, such as PDFpen. And, with an app like Hazel, I can set up all sorts of nerdy actions to process the files I print to my Mac. You can save it to a standard folder, a Dropbox folder, or send the file to an application (such as iPhoto, Yojimbo, Evernote, etc.)įor example, if I’m triaging email from my iPad and a receipt comes in, I can save it to the “Receipts” folder on my Mac. Using Printopia to print to a folder means that whatever it is you’re printing gets saved as a PDF to that folder on your Mac. Printing to a folder is just like the “Save as PDF…” options in your Mac’s print dialog box. Tip: To print from iOS Mail, hit the “Reply” button and you’ll see the option for printing.Īdditionally, Printopia can “Print” to any folder on my Mac. With Printopia running on my Mac, my iPhone and iPad can see my laser printer and print to it so long as my iOS device and my Mac are on the same wireless network. The premier feature of Printopia is, obviously, that it allows me to print to my home printers. ![]() Of the apps I tried, Printopia is clearly the best AirPrint enabler out there. Of the options out there, Printopia is my favorite. There are a few decent apps that give you this functionality (and some include more features than other). Thus bridging the gap between your iPhone and iPad and the printer. These apps work by sharing the printers your Mac has access to and allowing iOS to see those printers as being AirPrint enabled. There are some 3rd-party applications that you can install on your Mac to enable printing from your iPhone or iPad. This means even though my iPhone and iPad have the option of printing, they can’t “see” my printer and therefore can’t print to it.īut! There is a solution that doesn’t requiring buying a new printer (though it might be worth it for the toner). And now, you can too.In the corner of my office, on top of my filing cabinet, sits a cheap, reliable printer.Īlas, my trusty Brother laser jet doesn’t support AirPrint. And Printopia’s smart if I print an image, it’s treated as an image file. That means if I snap a photo, take a screenshot, or write something in Pages, I can choose to Print to Dropbox, and the file quickly shoots into the appropriate place on my Mac. So all those options appear as potential pseudo-printers on my iOS devices. In Printopia’s preference pane, I added options like Send to Dropbox, Send to Desktop, Send to Acorn-my image editor of choice-and Send to Cloud, a free service for quickly generating public links to images or snippets of text. Printopia recreates that concept, of printing to different file formats on your Mac, from your iOS device. That’s when you use the Print dialog on your box not to print a hard copy, but to “print”-and note that I’m saying the word “print” with quotation marks around it-to a PDF document that you can then email off to someone, or save, or whatever you need. You may be familiar with the notion of “Printing to PDF” on your Mac. The sole requirement is that the Mac on which you installed Printopia needs to be powered on in order for your iOS devices to see the printers.īut as I alluded to before, making your printers AirPrint-ready is at best half of the joy of using Printopia. Tap the Print button, and those printers you checked in Printopia will appear as available options for printing. Go back to your iPhone or iPad and find a document you’d like to print. Make sure the printers you want your iOS device to be able to see are checked-and your setup is complete. ![]() That might include printers connected via USB, or printers plugged into an AirPort base station that your Mac also connects to. The preference pane should find all the printers your Mac can print to. ![]() Printopia installs as a Preference Pane inside System Preferences on your Mac. Once you fall in love with Printopia like I did, it costs twenty bucks to own. What’s proved even more important to me in my daily use is that Printopia can print to files on your Mac, too-but we’ll get to that in a bit.ĭownload a free trial of Printopia from Ecamm’s website, which we’ll include in the show notes. If your Mac can print to a printer, Printopia can enable your iOS device to do so, too.
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