While Apple’s AirPrint technology is cool, it doesn’t work with the majority of printers on the market. There are a number of Mac apps that can solve this problem – but most of them cost a fair bit of money, and are inconvenient.
If you don’t feel like shelling out extra cash for a Mac app, or buying an AirPrint-compatible printer, Dave Caolo wrote a tip over at 52 Tiger that you just might find useful!
My printer, a Kodak 5250, does not support Apple’s AirPrint and likely never will. That’s too bad, because I’d like to print from my iPhone and iPad. Today I worked up a convoluted work-around with some additional benefits. 2 Best of all, it didn’t cost me a dime.
The idea is to create a folder in Dropbox and attach a Folder Actionto it that prints new additions. I use email to populate that folder and thereby trigger print jobs. Here’s how to set it up with IFTTT,Dropbox and Apple’s Automator.
As Caolo states, the workaround is a bit convoluted. It also requires your Mac to remain powered on if you want to print – but then again, so do all of the paid Mac apps attempting to work around the lack of AirPrint!
If you’d rather save some money, and you’ve got a few moments to set this up, head on over to 52 Tiger for all the details on how to make it work!
Update: As Dave notes in the comments, this doesn’t actually require your Mac to be powered on after all. Sorry for the confusion!