Netbook Printing over WiFi Network

[mcampos]

Ihave been a "lurker" in this forum for some time now.

I have a netbook connected at home an office to a WiFi network and I have no problems connecting to the internet or handling e-mail. My question though is How can I make the netbook print to one of the network printers? (basically HP laserjets).

Is anybody in this forum printing over a network? Should I just get the IR printer adapter?

Thanks in advance!

[wanman]

Hi mcampos,

Don't think this is possible via the WiFi card. The only way to print from the Psion is either using:

1) a direct serial cable to the printer
2) irda to a printer with either a built in irda receiver or an additional adapter
3) via a PC when connected via PsiWin using either serial cable or irda (seems it is possible now using IRCOMM2K)

Regards

Si

[cshandley]

Don't forget this method too:

Print using PdfPrinter (shareware). Then copy it to a PC running an FTP server, or send it via email.

At the PC end you can open it with Adobe Reader & print it.

It would be possible to create a script on the PC which checked for new files in an FTP directory, and to automatically send these to the printer. Just don't ask me how, but it'd probably involve Perl or some other hacky language if you used Linux :-)

[MartinG]

Originally posted by cshandley
Don't forget this method too:

Print using PdfPrinter (shareware). Then copy it to a PC running an FTP server, or send it via email.

Or use nConvert to convert Word to RTF, Sheet to Excel, etc., copy to PC, etc...

Or send native files and use PsiWin's 'Psion File Converter' on the PC...

etc. ;)

Martin

[diem]

Glad you've surfaced mcampos ;)

I don't think TCP/IP printing will work, since if I understand it correctly, this depends on installing an appropriate driver on the client machine. AFAIK HP don't do any EPOC drivers, so this will not be possible - IR is your best bet I reckon..

[mcampos]

Thanks for all the replies. I thought (and maybe I am imagining things), that there was a way for the Psion to independently print without needing to actually open the document on the PC and have it sent. Can the Psion print to an IP address? Thanks for all of your prompt responses.

[wanman]

I agree with Diem, that IRDA is probably the best route for wire free printing although it is slower than sending it down a serial cable.....well unless you add the PC boot up and Psiwin launch/connecting time !! lol

Si

[diem]

Originally posted by mcampos
Thanks for all the replies. I thought (and maybe I am imagining things), that there was a way for the Psion to independently print without needing to actually open the document on the PC and have it sent.
There is indeed; you can print directly to IrDA-enabled printers via the Psion's IR port.
Can the Psion print to an IP address?
No it cannot AFAIK.

[hochi]

Well, in addition you could print to a file (with every printer driver). So you won't need PDFPrinter I think. Just print to file, copy this to the PC and copy to LPT1 (or similar).

HTH,
Sebastian

[cshandley]

Sebastian,

I didn't think printing to file was possible for Psions?

That would of course be great; I used to print stuff from my Amiga, by printing to a file, copying to floppy disk, then going to the university computers & redirecting the file to LPT1 from there :-)

Originally posted by hochi
Well, in addition you could print to a file (with every printer driver). So you won't need PDFPrinter I think. Just print to file, copy this to the PC and copy to LPT1 (or similar).

HTH,
Sebastian

[Davidish]

Hello all,

This question has already been partially explored on these forums (as with so many other subjects - this place is a gold mine for Psion users!)

check out the following thread:
http://www.pdastreet.com/forums//showthread.php?threadid=7281

The perl solution at the end of the thread seems too combersome for me to bother using, but it does suggest that printing over ethernet should be implementable by a competent programmer, fairly quickly. If only I knew how to program... anyone interested in picking up the gauntlet?

David.

[ehasbrouck]

I don't really need to print that often from my MalayBook. But when I do, I print over WiFi (direct to the lpr print server built into my SMC router; no PC necessary) using the perl solution described in the previous post.

It does take a bit of time and care to set up, But I know nothing about perl, and didn't have much problem -- not nearly as fearsome as I thought it might be, and you defineitely don't have to do any programming yourself, just edit a couple of configuration files with your details.

*If* you have an "lpr" print server accessible from your WiFi network with a built-in (again, most likely if you've got some sort of router/accesspoint/firewall combo device that includes a print server), it's a workable solution. You have to print (to file), than run the "print file" perl app. But that's only one simple extra step.

It's really nice not to have to cable up or turn on a PC.

I've only used it for simple text -- I can't vouch for how it would work if you need graphical printing.