IssueTracker

Allowing Printer Attachment via USB would make Android a viable platform for
"industrial" mobile apps

Cups for network printers over wifi would be a good start.

yeah, i'd like my lexmark S305 work with android via wireless

CUPS support in Android would make it more attractive for netbooks and other places
that need more full featured applications. CUPS ability to see other CUPS servers on
the local network would make it excellent for auto-discovery when moving from network
to network.

Cups will add more values in terms of product features

In the last few days about 3 people commented on this issue. I guess, google is
currently more biased towards their cloud printing. I expect them to show no interest
in this issue any more. Btw, if I understand correctly, Android is OSS. Why can't we
add CUPS support without Google's help? Can someone more knowledgeable throw some
light on issues involved in adding cups to Android by an entity other than Google?

I would like cups on my hero

Would really like to see this happen. I use my G1 for a lot of note taking and would love to directly print to my print server (WPS54G).

For your information, we are OESF Lab in Vietnam (www.oesf.biz) are working to port CUPS to Android.
After porting CUPS, some printing applications (print manager, print job) will be added.
This is a ready hard work. Any help or contributor into this project are welcome!

TQSang (tqsang@oesf.biz)

I would love CUPS support. Google's cloud printing is great if you have complete control of a private printer (ie on your desktop), but it is ineffective if your school/business has dozens of network printers, and is unwilling/unable to install custom printing software on each device.
The network I operate on is one such network that utilizes hundreds old copiers/printers directly attached to the network; it would be infeasible for them to upgrade all their printers to new ones compliant with not-yet-released cloud software, and frankly not cost-effective, as the vast majority of devices printing there (and everywhere) are not Android phones/ special chrome netbooks. Having simple CUPS/Windows printing support would enable android to coexist peacefully and cost-effectively with network technology: quite a huge step away from Apple's forcing its ecosystem on others.

Furthermore, the iPhone/iPad may (probably will) never support cups or windows printing, so this would give the android another huge leg over the competition. Please add it!

I would love to see IPP printing added to an app on the android.  Don't limit it to WiFI, as the Android supports VPNs.  Since CUPS handles all the printer drivers, there would be no need to add driver support to the Android device itself.

At the very least, print to GhostScript or PDF, so we can have a file to upload to CUPS. (Please)

I reiterate support for this for the G2.

CUPS support would be awesone.

it is ery cool to add Cpus to android. We are working on it.I hope I can do it

Cups for android should become more and more important. most tablets have got usb ports... so why not simply print that web page from your tablet running android for example!

Or something "better", print over the network using 3G or Wifi from a mobile, without to be attached to a printer. Like HP eprint tecnologies.

>> Furthermore, the iPhone/iPad may (probably will) never support cups or windows printing, so this would give the android another huge leg over the competition. Please add it!

Bit of a silly thing to say when you consider that Apple own CUPS.  I don't know if it was available at the time you posted, but Apple's Airprint uses CUPS (*edit, it wasn't released until 3 months after your post).  In theory you can print from iOS to any CUPS server with PDF support (Airprint compatible printers have CUPS (or something similar) built in).

I don't see why Android couldn't use CUPS in some way, even if it only to print CUPS servers (like iOS does). If it could run a CUPS server on the phone and incorporate all the drivers provided by Open Printing, that would be quite something.

I think CUPS support for Android would very useful, at the very least it would be nice to have some sort of printing system built into the operating system, which that driver providers could make use of.  The current system with each manufacturer providing their own printing app (which can't be accessed by any other apps) is ridiculous.

iPhone/iPad work fine with cups... All you need to do is to advertise AirPrint service via mDNS. It pretty much works out of the box.

http://www.finnie.org/2010/11/13/airprint-and-linux/

Much more important than the ability to configure printers directly on the device is to at least have a local CUPS installation capable of connecting the CUPS server(s) present on the newtork. The beauty of CUPS is the ability to deliver all network printers to the CUPS clients without any configuration, since the jobs are exchanged in Postscript format.

So, a basic CUPS package that connects to the CUPS server(s) present in the LAN would already be a great start. With this, one could connect as many Androids as necessary to any network printer without any client configuration (as with happens with regular Linux desktops).

It will be helpful if it is a service API like the speech API. Then apps can use this API and third party can add different implementations.

Google have deep pockets.  So why not just buy out PrinterShare; enhance it to support all Android Apps instead of their limited selection; (Add it to the menu for all Apps) and then include it with the Android Bundle.  It would be a nice enhancement for Ice Cream Sandwitch !!

Googles Cloup based printing is just a waste of time and space - way too inflexible and hard to use for the likes of most people.

Same as 22
I have a work around, i got a configured email client, with a printing rule, each email with some special subject is printed with the attachment.
Its not bad becouse the most Apps have share options :)

Printing Intents will be a great feature to have in Android! Please bring it on!

Use this api for printing http://www.iprintsdk.com/

iPrint SDK is not free, so that's not a generally-acceptable solution.

This is for POS printer and not for normal office printer.

Printing for Android to a local printer is very important for business solutions.
Please bring it on.

One of the most fundamental capabilities of any information management device is printing. The lack of basic print capabilites in Android honeycomb is a complete deal killer in many instances. While not critical in the phone, tablet devices that cannot print to local network printers are of limited use. 3rd party print solutions are not legally viable for professions with legal confidentiality requirements (i.e. Medical, Legal, etc.) The print capabilities must be print directly to network (CUPS) or usb printers and cannot rely on 3rd party servers or services.

The problem is not with current technologies. CUPS with Avahi can easily handly printing from any device. The problem is basic and is solely due to the lack of any 'Print' functionality being built into Android OS. Simply put, Android needs a 'Print Button'. It is rather hard to believe that in 2012, this capability is not already there.

I don't know who the developers are that would be responsible for including this in Android, but I'm more than happy to work with them so that this basic capability can be rolled out quickly in an update to Android (3 and 4). Who to contact?

I would be very surprised if Google isn't developing their own print API, especially given their work to expand Android into the enterprise space. Until then, basic support for printing a few file formats (images, text, PDF, HTML) could be added via a Share function and a local CUPS server.

Hi, in the next few weeks I'm going to start developing/porting an App to enable printing an cups server.
I already testet some basic libs for that functionality.
The App will receive Images,Pdf,Postcript and send a print jop directly to the d CUPS-Server.
In the common way [Share] then Select the App.
 

Does anyone has test to use Cups4J with android?

Yes, I'm trying to port it to Simple. The Problem is that they used JAXB for the Xml marshalling, thats not good for android.

Yes, I'm trying to port it to Simple. The Problem is that they used JAXB for the Xml marshalling, thats not good for android.

EDIT:
I have Ported it, works fine, but the Android Java, doesn't support javax.print so its not straight forward to create / convert to postscript.

I got RiePS und cups4j running together.

[Comment deleted]

@okolovskis.aleksejs: Where can I download your printer driver?

bringing CUPS to an Android device is simple. Just install Linux from the market and then install cups in a terminal window (apt-get install cups). After you install CUPS, through your droid browser go to http://localhost:631, plug in your printer in the USB, and set it up. You'll be able to print through CUPS by using other apps in the market, just search for "print cups". It worked for me.

Printer support through the OS would be great.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzL5mzMNNkU

https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups=#!topic/android-porting/Tjhu2_qksXI

http://developer.oesf.biz/em/developer/dev_guide/PrintFramework.html

https://github.com/OESF

CUPS is GPL, still wasn't able to find the source.

I have opened a new issue, that describes this problem in a better way:

Issue 36949180:         [feature-request] Please add Android Printer Framework (APF)

It discussed two new abstraction layers: Windows RT/8 and Google Cloud Print.

Bye,
-Alexey "Technologov", 27.Nov.2012.

I installed a new Canon MX455 wifi printer 2 days ago.  Windows printing from all PC's in a few minutes.  From my wife's iPad - 30 seconds with no set up, using airprint.  From android using cloud print?  Nothing yet.  Too complex.  I have to have my PC on because the printer doesn't support direct printing?  Oh... purlease.

If Apple can do it so elegantly, please could Android?

[Comment deleted]

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