iPad Air printing problem

See:

• Use AirPrint to print from your iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch - Apple Support
• Connect an AirPrint printer to a Wi-Fi network - Apple Support

Apple AirPrint is a driverless connection protocol - that uses WiFi. A high proportion of modern printers intended for Home, SoHo and Business environments support AirPrint. Check your printer model against this list:

About AirPrint - Apple Support

If your printer supports AirPrint - and is set-up correctly - should you continue to experience difficulties your WiFi Router may be unexpectedly failing to pass Apple Bonjour traffic on you local network - or your WiFi Router or Network Switch may be blocking this (or other) device discovery protocol(s).

Ensure that your wired and wireless network segments are part of the same IP-subnet, are not defined as separate VLANs - or that one or other are defined as “guest” networks, or placed in a DMZ. You may find that your router has a setting that limits/restricts broadcast and network discovery traffic; by example, if your Router has an IGMP Snooping setting, try toggling this or similar settings. Your Router WiFi settings may also have privacy settings that isolate WiFi clients from each other; if present, ensure these settings are disabled.

The Apple Bonjour protocol uses mDNS (Multicast DNS) UDP port 5353.

You may find that restart of your network components will resolve the problem. You’ll need to restart your network devices in the correct order. Assuming that you WiFi Router provides DNS services for your network, restart devices in this order - allowing time for devices to fully boot/restart prior to restarting other devices:

• WiFi Router
• Upstream wired Network Switch(es)
• WiFi Access Points / Network Extenders
• Other fixed infrastructure devices - such as Printers
• Client devices

Restarting your iPad, after restarting other devices in the correct sequence, is most simply achieved by a forced-restart of the iPad:

Force restart iPad - Apple Support

If you continue to have difficulties, check to see if your iPad is using the new WiFi Private Address feature. This feature is intended to provide additional privacy and security when using “public” (untrusted) WiFi networks.

Settings > WiFi > [Your WiFi Network / SSID] - tap the “i” icon - Private Address

The Private Address feature is largely unnecessary for your home WiFi network; if enabled, Private Addressing can interfere with anticipated operation of other devices, such as AirPrint/Airplay. In such circumstances, you may need to disable this feature - and can be enabled or disabled for each individual network.

Use private Wi-Fi addresses in iOS 14, iPadOS 14, and watchOS 7 - Apple Support

“Bluetooth”?

Use AirPrint to print from your iPhone or iPad - Apple Support

Have you done this - from the article I supplied?

• Make sure that your iPhone or iPad and your printer are connected to the same Wi-Fi network and that you're within range.

carliefromfranktown wrote:

Oddly, I can print from a Safari webpage but not from any other app.

Oh, so the issue has nothing at all to do with AirPrint. It is more focused on Share.

Have you tried, for example, printing from the Photos app using Share?

In Apple’s Mail app, only mail attachments can be printed using a Share button.

See this from the iPad User Guide explaining how to print Mail messages.

Print an email or attachment in Mail on iPad - Apple Support

So what app(s) are you not able to print from?

You’re welcome. Glad it’s resolved.

Enjoy your iPad.