5 More Great Apps For Mobile Printing

Mobile Print At Center Stage

CRN's Printer Week 2013 went by so quickly, we barely had time to scratch the surface of all the great mobile printing apps out there. So we took another pass. Here are five more mobile printing solutions that just might save a trip to the PC keyboard.

Samsung Mobile Print

For controlling and outputting to its great printers, Samsung offers mobile printing apps for Android and iTunes devices, as well as a mobile printing solution for the enterprise. Samsung Mobile Print for Android smartphones and tablets and Samsung Mobile Print for iPad and iPhone devices offer different interfaces to accomplish largely the same set of functions. Both free apps can print, fax and scan on compatible MFPs and support output of document formats from PDF to Office and email plus a variety of image types. The Android version also can crop and rotate images and print from Google Drive and social sites. The iOS version can scan images to the mobile device and shares files through HTTP/WebDAV. Many Samsung printers support Apple AirPrint; the company has introduced wireless printing via NFC to some models, and embeds printing capabilities into its smartphones and printers with security that can be tied to devices rather than passcodes.

Epson Connect

For Epson printers, the company offers Epson Connect, a free suite for Android, BlackBerry, iOS, Mac OS X and Windows. With Epson Email Print, any device with email access can print attachments through a free web service on newer Epson printers. The Epson iPrint App is available for Android and for iOS and lets smartphones and tablets control Epson printers and MFP scanners, and print local or cloud-stored files. Epson Remote Print enables Windows machines to control and print to any web-connected Epson printer. Epson Scan to Cloud lets Epson MFPs scan and save directly to a Box, Dropbox, Evernote or Google Drive account and/or share it via email.

Lexmark Mobile Printing

If yours is a Lexmark printer shop with a need to print while mobile, then the company has an app for that. The Lexmark Mobile Print is available for Android smartphones and tablets as well as for iPad and iPhone devices running iOS 5.0 or later. Once a PDF, JPG or other major image file to print is identified, simply "share" it with the app and select the output device from a list of search results of compatible Lexmark printers on the local network. Printers also can be identified using a built-in QR Code reader or by manually entering its name, IP address or URL.

PrintHand Mobile Print Premium

For organizations with a variety of printer brands, an app from mobile app dev Dynamix Software has a one-stop solution. For $12.99, PrintHand Mobile Print Premium for Android prints from smartphones and tablets to hundreds of printers from dozens of printer companies. It can print not just PDFs and images, but any document that's accessible by the device, including text messages; files from Google Drive, Box and Dropbox; calendars and calendar items; and contacts and call logs. It has the ability to apply filters and date ranges where applicable, and to resize and scale images before printing. Also supported are Office Word, Excel and PowerPoint docs; text files; email and email attachments; web pages; Facebook albums; data from apps; and lots of other common file formats. It prints via Wi-Fi or Bluetooth, and free pass-through drivers enable output to shared printers on Mac OS X, or Windows machines or devices accessible through a workgroup, domain or Active Directory. It also can print directly via USB with Android 4.0 or higher.

ThinkFree Mobile Print

Another universal mobile printing app comes from Hancom, a Korean developer of office suite software. ThinkFree Mobile Print for Android is free for users of Hancom's Mobile Office, Office Viewer or Mobile Pro productivity tools. Analogous to Microsoft Office, these tools include word processing, spreadsheet and presentation apps and use file formats said to be compatible with Microsoft's. For everyone else, ThinkFree Mobile Print costs $14.99 and prints common document types to multiple PostScript, PCL and inkjet printer brands. It discovers devices on a network automatically, using protocols that include CIFS, Active Directory, SNMP, SMB, Bonjour, SSDP and Web Services on Device. Print job options include control of the number of copies, orientation, two-sided printing and page range.