Printing from Pages on iPad

Unfortunately, the iPad doesn't currently support printing directly from the device. I was searching all day yesterday for the best ways to handle this with minimal contact with my desktop PC and, ultimately, the only way to handle this without ripping your hair out (unless youre bald then youre ahead of the game and yes - no pun intended) is to sync via iTunes, open the content on your desktop (whether you exported as Pages or Word format), and print from your desktop.

While I'm no fan of extraneous waste via unnecessary printing, the world we live in NOW (not Jobs vision of where the future SHOULD be by his direction) still requires hardcopy documents for business/education etc and my opinion is, that IF you're going to try and take a stab at the ultra-mobility market by way of creating a suite of office applications for your magnificent and revolutionary and world changing device, then absolutely have the forethought to not only support the world to COME but the one we live in today too....and THAT would easily have been addressed by simply adding **** printing capability 🙂

First let me say that I am loving my Ipad. It is a great beginning. Now that that has been said, I have to admit some disappointment in certain aspects of the IPad. This happens to be one of them. I don't understand how a designer can put a word processor on the iPad and boast about the capabilities, yet not allow printing form the device. I can understand that there is not a printer port on the iPad, however in today's technology we have networked printers and printer sharing. I am a student and if I need to print a document I will have to wait until I can get back home to be iMac to sync and print. This is a little inconvenient considering this is supposed to be a mobile device. as I mentioned I love my iPad, but I hope this is one that can be fixed with a software release. Apple if you are reading this and you allow me to network with my Mac at home for printing how about adding file sharing too? These are basic laptop computer functions that could bridge the gap between mobile phone and laptop.

Hiya Sketchy,

That's not ENTIRELY accurate. If you're a student, and you REALLY REALLY need to print something out, as long as you DO have access to email wherever you are at the moment, you can email the document to yourself and print it. However, if you DONT have access to email, then yep for sure you're out of luck.

I do agree with everything you said though, and, like you, I certainly hope they "make a few fixes" for us little people.

Apple if you are reading this

To make sure they see your request, post it here:

http://www.apple.com/feedback/pages_ipad.html

Have any of you tried the PrinterShare app that is for the iphone? I don't know if it is available for the ipad or not, but it works pretty good for the iphone. The only downside is that you have to install a client on your computer, but it does print from my iphone quite well. Since the ipad is supposed to run iphone apps, I would try that.

I have found a sort of work around involving the 'Print n Share' app. From Pages, select the document you want to print and email it to yourself. It will create an email with the document as an attachment. Once you receive the email, you can print the attachment, i.e., the document you want to print, directly from 'Print n Share'. I think 'Print n Share' will print directly to wireless printers and it will print to any printer so long as their WePrint software is on a computer connected to the printer. This will work for me at home and at my office and pretty much anywhere since the 'WePrint' software is free.

But this only prints - if you want to save the document on your main computer and work on it there, it looks like the transfer method would be the easiest unless you don't have a cable handy - then emailing the attachment will work.

iwork.com also worked as a transfer point but I had to have it running on my computer before I could log in from the ipad which makes it a pretty weak cloud! LOL To be useful, I'll need to be able to load stuff from the ipad to iwork.com and then find it later.

Anyway, there are ways to print and transfer files from Pages on the ipad without the hard wire connection. And I'm sure there will be better solutions down the road!

peace, Scott

Since iPad has Bluetooth - can a Bluetooth enabled printer be used in some fashion. If so, how would one go about doing that?

I used to have Print N' Share and I hated printing from my iPhone through a computer.

Yesterday I bought ePrint and it works great, direct from my iPad to the wifi/network printer. The company suggests their free version first, just to make sure it works with your printer.

Mu only complaint is I haven't figured out how to print more than one copy. I can print "page 2-3" but now two of each. I e-mailed the company to ask if there's something I'm missing.

Other than that, I love the app.

Dan

Just want to add a little clarity to this issue if anyone else is wondering...

I have an iPad and Pages.

You CAN print your iWork documents from the iPad with some work-arounds.

The ePrint app someone else mentioned - I do not have experience with, but judging from the the reviews, it appears it does not support printing iWork documents yet, so your best bet is Print N Share.

First, you have to have Print N Share. You also will have to have a network printer that is supported by Print N Share natively, otherwise, you have to use the free print n share server software running on a computer that is connected to the printer you want to use.

Second, you will have to email the document to yourself from within Pages. Then, open Print N Share, go to your email (You setup your email account in Print N Share which has a rudimentary mail reader built-in), open the attachment, and print.

Apple announced last week that iPhone OS 4 for iPad will have native support for printing, but it will not be available for the iPad until the Fall, so until then this is the only way.

I hope that helps.

where did u see os 4 has native printing?

Sorry. I was wrong. It was not an official announcement. It is positive speculation:

http://www.tuaw.com/2010/04/07/iphone-os-4-set-to-bring-printing-to-ipad-iphone/

well if you look at the date on that they were wrong. theyve anounced what is going to be in os4