AirPrint printing from Foreflight

[denverpilot]

Sent a note to FF already about this but wondering if others can test.

In the past, I've printed plates from FF using AirPrint. Worked fine.

Technically it's not an AirPrint printer. I'm using AirPrint Activator to share a USB-connected Samsung color laser printer to iPad/iPhone.

Other Apps print normally.

Foreflight seems to do something funky to the page size, and where this used to work, it now prints about a quarter of the page.

Anyone else have AirPrint printer(s) or even another AirPrint Activator (or similar running on a desktop Mac or PC) who also has the latest Foreflight, who can see if their plates are printing correctly?

I've also tried to a different printer shared the same way off of that particular Mac.

I may try tomorrow on a different Mac sharing the same printers.

The second printer test rules out the print driver itself, but that's about all. Could still be something jacked up in CUPS on that Mac.

Will post if FF Support has any thoughts.

It's odd that only FF is doing it. Safari and other apps, no problem.

It's case number 130434 at Foreflight if anyone has anything similar going on... feel free to reference the ticket number.

Thanks...

 

[Rigged4Flight]

Can't help you with that problem, but in the meantime you can capture the screen image and print the picture (assuming everything you want to print is on the screen).

Power+Home button at the same time.

 

[magicj]

AirPrint Activator has not worked for me for a while not. I think since I upgraded to Snow Leopard. I used FingerPrint for a while but after a recent update of ForeFlight I started to have the same problem as you, Oversized 1/4 page on 8x11. After going around with both FingerPrint (who recognizes there is a problem and refunded my payment.) ForeFlight recommended Printopia. Downside is it is $20US. But it does work with FF.

 

[denverpilot]

Answer back from FF was Printopia here also.

Not sure it's worth it, since I rarely need to print plates. Was mostly looking into it for when the FAA raises prices and the free sites start to disappear.

Very odd that everything else prints normally through AirPrint Activator, except ForeFlight.

Did learn that most printer manufacturers have Apps for printing to just about anything from iPad nowadays, but they require the App to implement "Open in... [App name]" to shove the file over to them.

Again, most Apps that deal with document do implement that widget. FF doesn't because it mainly only receives documents... For the bring-your-own feature.

Oh well, this little jaunt got the HP and Samsung free printing Apps onto the iPad and I printed a few nice photos without having to sit down at a desktop machine. That's something.

 

[comanchepilot]

Airprint activator Is that an app for the iPad for a program for the Mac? ?

 

[denverpilot]

Airprint activator Is that an app for the iPad for a program for the Mac? ?

It's for the Mac. Basically just shares out your local printers via IPP and makes appropriate Bonjour announcements on the network so iOS devices can find them.

Printopia is the same thing basically, but apparently works better.

I just realized that Printopia has a seven day free trial version, so I'll test and see if it works where AirPrint Activator doesn't. Or not.

There are piles of similar tools for Windows. As long as the PC/Mac is always on, it just sits there and acts as a print server for iOS devices. Cheaper than replacing two printers with their newer AirPrint compatible brethren.

I have a Samsung color laser that's ridiculously cheap to operate, and an HP OfficeJet all in one thingy that sucks down ink like it was thirsty in a desert, but it copies and scans in both color and black and white, and if we had a regular phone line, faxes.

Karen uses the HP all in one mostly as a sheet feed scanner, she takes all the important mail and stuffs it through the sheet feeder before shredding it. Bills and whatnot.

But the Samsung is the printing workhorse. It's not fast, but even with a reasonable amount of printing color and B&W stuff, toner carts last a couple of years and are only $75 to replace all four of them.

The Samsung is USB connectivity only. I've had it hooked to the USB port on the Time Capsule in the past, but hooked to that to make it wireless, it exhibits the strange behavior of only printing every other job. Something weird about that setup. Hooked to a desktop Mac and shared out to the network, it's flawless.

The HP has wifi and it just works with the Macs but it isn't a model with the firmware updates to make it make Bonjour announcements for AirPrint for the iOS devices.

The HP also duplex prints (two-sided) which is useful for some stuff. Feeding pages back through the laser is time consuming and dumb.

 

[denverpilot]

Confirmed, Printopia works properly with Foreflight, with the usual caveat that it'll print your plates 8.5" x 11" which is a touch on the large side.