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Wireless Printing Suggestion?

CosmoPilot

CosmoPilot

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Nov 8, 2010
1,537
373
South Carolina
Wirelessly posted

I have an HP Deskjet plugged into my iMac (only printer I have).

I have an AEBS and 2 AE to extend my WiFi. I plan on giving my MBP to my daughter for school work.

I'm looking for a printing solution that everyone in my family can use. I could either go with a wireless printer or plug a new printer into the AEBS or AE. I'm open to any suggestion, I just have the following needs.

1. Need scanning capability.
2. Need all my Apple products (iPads, etc) to be able to print to it from the network or wirelessly.
3. Needs color capability.

Any recommendations on a printer/copier and how to set it up (plug into AEBS or wireless capable printer)?

Thanks in advance.
 
S

shelob8888

macrumors member
Sep 24, 2009
54
0
Hey there!

I easily share my HP laser jet on the home network through the sharing pane in system preferences. My laser jet stays connected to my iMac, and any computer on the network can then find that printer in the printer pane in system preferences as well.

as far as printing from iOS devices, you need one that supports AirPrint, check out this list from apple that has some great info about AirPrint and how to set that up.

As far as wireless printers, I have had terrible luck with them (i constantly troubleshoot friends problems). I find they are quite unreliable, and if you have a desktop, why not have something that is a sure connection w/ USB, and not clog the wireless network with another device constantly using bandwidth? IMO

hope that helps!!! let us know what you do!
 
marzer

marzer

macrumors 65816
Nov 14, 2009
1,398
123
Colorado
CosmoPilot said:
Wirelessly posted

1. Need scanning capability.
2. Need all my Apple products (iPads, etc) to be able to print to it from the network or wirelessly.
3. Needs color capability.

Any recommendations on a printer/copier and how to set it up (plug into AEBS or wireless capable printer)?

Thanks in advance.
Click to expand...

Wifi AIO are so cheap anymore there's no reason not to get one that is wireless. And from my experience in recent years, any home class AIO color deskjet from HP, Epson or Canon will easily provide all the features you want with easy and reliable connectivity.

One caveat, to make ANY printer available to your iOS devices all you need to do is load Airprint Activator on one of your Macs. Works great.

For a more specific printer recommedation, I just picked up an Epson NX 620 printer for $40 on clearance from Office Max, a really nice printer and it works well as a network scanner. I would recommend you take a look at the NX 420 or 430, both the new models and both under $100.
 
W

whuybr0

macrumors newbie
Mar 11, 2009
21
0
Belgium
A few years ago I wanted the same. Printing from a any computer (iMac, MacBook and MacBook Air) and from any iOS device (iPhone and iPad).
I had an HP Officejet 4580 (all-in-one scanner,copier, printer and fax).

I hooked it up to an AE, so all computers could print to it. For iOS devices I had to install AirPrint Hacktivator on my iMac and print through the shared printer on my iMac with e.g. my iPhone.
In this setup, my iOS devices sometimes had difficulties finding the printer.

I found no solution for wireless scanning with this HP printer.

Recently I switched to an AirPrint enabled HP Officejet Pro 8600 Plus. This has WiFi built-in. All devices (computer, iOS) can print wirelessly without any problem.
Furthermore I can scan documents wirelessly to a DropBox folder, so the scanned documents are available on ALL devices, seconds after scanning.

I did not regret the switch to this printer for a minute. Works fast, economically and does what I want without the need for a complex configuration.

Maybe you should take a look at this all-in-one machine ...
 
CosmoPilot

CosmoPilot

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Nov 8, 2010
1,537
373
South Carolina
whuybr0 said:
A few years ago I wanted the same. Printing from a any computer (iMac, MacBook and MacBook Air) and from any iOS device (iPhone and iPad).
I had an HP Officejet 4580 (all-in-one scanner,copier, printer and fax).

I hooked it up to an AE, so all computers could print to it. For iOS devices I had to install AirPrint Hacktivator on my iMac and print through the shared printer on my iMac with e.g. my iPhone.
In this setup, my iOS devices sometimes had difficulties finding the printer.

I found no solution for wireless scanning with this HP printer.

Recently I switched to an AirPrint enabled HP Officejet Pro 8600 Plus. This has WiFi built-in. All devices (computer, iOS) can print wirelessly without any problem.
Furthermore I can scan documents wirelessly to a DropBox folder, so the scanned documents are available on ALL devices, seconds after scanning.

I did not regret the switch to this printer for a minute. Works fast, economically and does what I want without the need for a complex configuration.

Maybe you should take a look at this all-in-one machine ...
Click to expand...

This sounds like exactly what I'm looking for. In terms of Drop Box (scanning solution), I've never used it. Let's say my daughter has a document she needs to scan, does it go to the same location as a document I need to scan? Is there a computer interface with wireless scanning on this, or do you just press a scan button and it goes to Drop Box?

Again, thanks for the information.

Macman45 said:
Epson stylus 535w, works on all three macs, iPad and iPhone, requires no cabling just input your wifi details and off you go.

It's also well supported with updates, good high res.scanning, seamless integration and cheap too:
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=search-alias=aps&field-keywords=epson+stylus+535w


Different US product number from the UK version but it's the same device.
Click to expand...

This sounds similar to the above suggestion. Any issues with scanning, does it use Drop Box as well?

Thanks!
 
W

whuybr0

macrumors newbie
Mar 11, 2009
21
0
Belgium
CosmoPilot said:
This sounds like exactly what I'm looking for. In terms of Drop Box (scanning solution), I've never used it. Let's say my daughter has a document she needs to scan, does it go to the same location as a document I need to scan? Is there a computer interface with wireless scanning on this, or do you just press a scan button and it goes to Drop Box?
Click to expand...

Through a browser interface you can preset different locations to scan to. You could setup a location for your daughter on her own computer or on a folder of a network drive and you can setup a scan location in your Dropbox folder of your own computer. You can choose the location to scan to on the screen of the scanner after loading the document. If you press Dropbox (or a specified folder in your Dropbox folder) the scanner saves the document there and your computer automatically uploads it to the Dropbox cloud. Within a few seconds you can consult the document on every computer or iOS device that has access to your Dropbox account. Theoretically you can create (more than one) scan-destinations for every member of your family, and select this destination on the screen of the scanner.
 
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