how do I set up an airprint printer with mac and ipad?

AirPrint is functionally the same for all printers that support this [driverless] printing protocol. What differs is how the individual manufacturers present the configuration interface.

In essence, the printer should simply need to be joined to your Home Router’s WiFi network.

The various printer manufacturers offer many models of printers, each with different specifications and features. As such, “easiest” setup is very subjective.

Connect an AirPrint printer to a Wi-Fi network - Apple Support

Just about any AirPrint printer with a touch-based LCD display is pretty trivial to set up. Most printers have a simple setup where you just use a touch keyboard to login the printer into your home WiFi network just like you’d log in any WiFi device.

After that, there is nothing else to do. AirPrint is driverless. Any Apple device capable of AirPrint will see any and all AirPrint printers on the same WiFi network (AirPrint uses Bonjour, Apple’s technology to allow devices to find each other and connect over the local network).