I have a printer connected to a Windows XP print server on my Wifi network. It’s really not all that straightforward to get an iPad to print to this is it? Google comes up with a variety of solutions, none of which seem straightforward (or anything like as easy as setting up a printer on a Windows 7 laptop 🙄 ). Any suggestions of the best (free) way to get this to work?

No free way, several apps that will do it. No, it’s not simple – I ended up buying one of the cheap HP printers that plays nicely with the iPad.

bump for the daytime IT crowd – I thought I found something free which claimed to do this, and definitely don’t want to have to buy a new printer because the iPad doesn’t “just work” with the arrangement I have (which I thought was pretty standard).

BURN THE HERETIC!

Hmm – well at least with a Windows problem you can usually rely on getting advice on here to solve it 🙄

Epson wireless printer and Epson iprint app works for both iPad and iPhone.

Does Google Cloud Print do what you need?

I had the same issue, ended up buying a new hp printer to replace my old Dell printer. Easy peasy to print from ipad now

I’m afraid you’ll have to be the huge sum of £8 to get it to “just work”:
fingerprint
Have just installed it on my pc at home. Can now print via airprint from any iOS device. Obviously PC needs to be on but does the job for me

You seem confused by “the One True Apple Way”:

The universal small print footnote to “it just works” is “provided you stick to our closed system and only use devices and software that we explicitly endorse“.

Hence a printer that does not have the AirPrint-compatible logo doesn’t “just work” with AirPrint.

Works a treat with an hp wireless printer though. Think mine cost about £60 and has the benefit that it can’t be stuck in a cupboard as it doesn’t need a cable connected to the pc.

I just don’t think you’ve got into the spirit of Apple device ownership…everything has to be Apple.

This comes from someone with an ipad3, and iphone and a macbook.

Baaaa.

Works a treat with an hp wireless printer though. Think mine cost about £60 and has the benefit that it can’t be stuck in a cupboard as it doesn’t need a cable connected to the pc.

But it is kind of irritating for people like me that have had a perfectly good wireless laser printer sitting on their network for a decade, but can’t use it from the iPad cos it is Lexmark not a new AirPrint-ready HP.

You seem confused by “the One True Apple Way”:

The universal small print footnote to “it just works” is “provided you stick to our closed system and only use devices and software that we explicitly endorse”.

Hence a printer that does not have the AirPrint-compatible logo doesn’t “just work” with AirPrint.

But it is kind of irritating for people like me that have had a perfectly good wireless laser printer sitting on their network for a decade, but can’t use it from the iPad cos it is Lexmark not a new AirPrint-ready HP.

A decade? You’d be damned lucky to get printer drivers after five years. I have a non-AirPrint ready Epson I bought three or so years ago, and I can print directly to it from my iPhone or iPad, because Epson produced a free app to allow it.
Why do you expect brand-new technology to be backwards compatible with some kit you’ve had kicking around for ten years?

Why do you expect brand-new technology to be backwards compatible with some kit you’ve had kicking around for ten years?

My very new Windows 7 laptop and a decade old HP DJ1220 just works (drivers also readily available).

I can beat that aracer, HP 4L 1995 vintage plugged into a hub.

all 3 Win7 PC’s pick it up & print fine.

TBH our work network (30,000 users across the globe) allows me to print to any printer from any PC/Workstation

There is an app for Lexmark printers….not sure what printer they work on but worth a look.

nullhttp://www.netgear.com/landing/en-us/netgear-genie.aspx

Fingerprint for me as well, also means you can move files between your iPad/iPhone to the computer. I have an iMac and a colour laser on the same subnet so , you know, it just works. $13NZ well spent.

A decade? You’d be damned lucky to get printer drivers after five years…

Lexmark still have drivers available for it that cover Linux (AIX,Compaq and Mint), Mac (OS 9.0 to OSX 10) and Windows (from Win95! all the way to Vista and Windows 7).

Why do you expect brand-new technology to be backwards compatible with some kit you’ve had kicking around for ten years?

Because that is the case for Windows, Mac and Linux so I can understand the OPs frustration – despite buying into the iOS walled garden myself.

There is an app for Lexmark printers….not sure what printer they work on but worth a look.

Cheers bellys. I took a quick look this morning. Reviews aren’t exactly great (less than one star!), but it did manage to find my printer (Lexmark E120N) by IP address, despite it not being on the supported list.

Not actually managed to print anything with it yet though (it only handles PDFs and images) – will have a proper play tonight.

Why do you expect brand-new technology to be backwards compatible with some kit you’ve had kicking around for ten years?

Cos we’re not apple fanbois 🙂 I can’t think of anything I have bought in the last 10 years that I still have and DOESN’T work any more.

Ok hang on.. the last incompatibility issue I had was a new game with Windows 2k about 2 years ago…

This seems like a good opportunity to roll this one out…
Printing from the ipad:

Thanks for all the help and words of encouragement, chaps. I’ve found something free which claims to work, so I’ll have a go with that before shelling out money (oh the irony that the fanbois go on about all the free apps, yet there’s tons of Windows freeware – most of which isn’t even adware).

It is sometimes amusing owning* an iPad and not being a fanboi.

*strictly speaking it belongs to mrs aracer’s work – though I get the joy of the tech-support job.

Right well I can confirm that although the Lexmark app can see my Lexmark E120N, it makes an arse of printing to it (spewing out pages with gibberish on each one). They did say it wasn’t compatible.

However I just installed Smart Office 2 – which is currently FREE and that can see my printer and print Word doc, PDFs etc to it, and hooks into Dropbox and Google Docs. So maybe the OP could try that.