Airplay has made it a snap for me to print my documents to my Desktop printer over my local WiFi network. (Well at least after applying the AirPrint Activator fix (http://netputing.com/airprintactivator) for my non-AirPrint enabled printer.)
But more often than not I'd rather store the document as a PDF rather than printing it out. For example, if I'd like to keep a copy of an online purchase confirmation, I'd rather not have a paper copy.
The solution that I have found to work well is to install the CUPS-PDF virtual printer on my Desktop MacPro.
http://bitbucket.org/codepoet/cups-pdf-for-mac-os-x/downloads Follow the instructions on the related page http://bitbucket.org/codepoet/cups-pdf-for-mac-os-x/wiki/Home to set it up as a new printer on your desktop mac, and be sure to check 'Share this printer on network' in the System Preferences.
This CUPS-PDF printer now shows up under the print option on your iPad. The PDF will be stored in Users/Shared/CUPS-PDF/guest/. You can place an alias to this folder on your Desktop for easy access
There is a minor permissions issue, in that the only psuedo-user 'guest' will have read-write permissions to the PDF. This is not a big deal if you are an admin user as you can right click on the file and change the permissions via the 'Get Info' dialogue box. However, constantly changing permissions is a pain so I installed a folder action to automatically change the permissions on any file placed into this folder. The Folder Action is an applescript with the following commands:
This script is a minor modification of that posted by Cory Bohon on TUAW. http://www.tuaw.com/2009/03/26/applescript-exploring-the-power-of-folder-actions-part-iii/. The only change is to add administrator privileges.
To use the script enter an administrator's name and password where it says 'MyName' and 'MyPassword'. Save the script as a run only application (this prevents others from viewing the name and password in the script). Place the script app in /Library/Scripts/Folder Action Scripts/
Right click the CUPS-PDF/guest/ folder and add this script as an associated folder action.
The end result is that you can Print web pages and other documents as PDFs to your desktop computer and easily access them from any user account.
But more often than not I'd rather store the document as a PDF rather than printing it out. For example, if I'd like to keep a copy of an online purchase confirmation, I'd rather not have a paper copy.
The solution that I have found to work well is to install the CUPS-PDF virtual printer on my Desktop MacPro.
http://bitbucket.org/codepoet/cups-pdf-for-mac-os-x/downloads Follow the instructions on the related page http://bitbucket.org/codepoet/cups-pdf-for-mac-os-x/wiki/Home to set it up as a new printer on your desktop mac, and be sure to check 'Share this printer on network' in the System Preferences.
This CUPS-PDF printer now shows up under the print option on your iPad. The PDF will be stored in Users/Shared/CUPS-PDF/guest/. You can place an alias to this folder on your Desktop for easy access
There is a minor permissions issue, in that the only psuedo-user 'guest' will have read-write permissions to the PDF. This is not a big deal if you are an admin user as you can right click on the file and change the permissions via the 'Get Info' dialogue box. However, constantly changing permissions is a pain so I installed a folder action to automatically change the permissions on any file placed into this folder. The Folder Action is an applescript with the following commands:
Code:
on adding folder items to this_folder after receiving added_items
tell application "Finder"
set fold_name to the name of this_folder
try
repeat with i from 1 to number of items in added_items
set new_item to item i of added_items
set the item_path to the quoted form of the POSIX path of new_item
do shell script ("/bin/chmod -R ugo+rw " & item_path) user name "MyName" password "MyPassword" with administrator privileges
end repeat
end try
end tell
end adding folder items toThis script is a minor modification of that posted by Cory Bohon on TUAW. http://www.tuaw.com/2009/03/26/applescript-exploring-the-power-of-folder-actions-part-iii/. The only change is to add administrator privileges.
To use the script enter an administrator's name and password where it says 'MyName' and 'MyPassword'. Save the script as a run only application (this prevents others from viewing the name and password in the script). Place the script app in /Library/Scripts/Folder Action Scripts/
Right click the CUPS-PDF/guest/ folder and add this script as an associated folder action.
The end result is that you can Print web pages and other documents as PDFs to your desktop computer and easily access them from any user account.