Ok, so I have this crazy printer set up which you can see in my signature. When I am in mail forward something to print, it tells me I do not have an air printer? So, is that some other devise I have to buy from Apple? Also, btw, my iPad only works on my 2.4 gh network, not the high speed. FC7055/LL model.

Just because a printer is wireless does not mean any iDevice can print to it. The printer must indeed be an "air printer". Think of that as some type of certification/designation. Nearly every new wireless printer is an air printer.

However, I seem to recall that there are apps you can buy for your iPad that should allow you to print to any wireless printer.

Good info from Ira, that I'll add to by pointing out that the reason AirPrint works is that the "drivers" for the printer are already on the iPad. More generally, the driver(s) it's using are generic drivers that work with a large number of printers. So you can't just "make" a printer work with AirPrint, it needs to be able to speak a more basic language. (the AirPrint drivers are probably based on something ubiquitous, like the HP LaserJet 3SI drivers)

The software Ira speaks of basically does two things. 1. it advertises the printer as available as an AirPrint printer on your local network, and 2. it basically performs a "printer sharing" function, while translating the between the basic AirPrint and the printer you're using. That means the software must know how to translate for that particular printer, so you'll need to read the specs on the software to make sure your printer is supported.

Google "share your printer over AirPrint" for a number of different options. Even google seems to offer a service...

To add to my previous comment, the App Store shows Air Printer Lite and Pro as doing what you want. The Lite version is limited to 2 page documents; the Pro version is unrestricted.

The Pro version is also $39.99 (!). For a few dollars more you could probably buy a cheap AirPrint capable inkjet printer.

For the fun of it, since the app I would need costs $39.95, I want to just turn on printer sharing (all my ports are off right now because snowy has no more security updates.) however, I do not want to just leave that port open to to 'everybody.' Does my iPad have a name and where di I find it?

Turning on printer sharing isn't sufficient. The printer is shared over a different method of discovery. There IS software you can get for your mac to share some kinds of printers over AirPrint. I don't have any experience with them though.

If you connect your iPad to your Mac (via USB cable) and open iTunes, your iPad will show up in the sidebar with its name displayed.

I own Printopia, which I've had for three or four years, and rarely have a week that goes by without using it. Besides letting me print to paper, it can "print" to a PDF, to a Dropbox folder, or any other folder for that matter.

Printopia, other than in those bundle offers, is about $20. If you expect to use it as frequently as I do, I wouldn't hesitate to recommend it. For light or infrequent printing, it may not be worth it.

Funny, I bought Printopia over the weekend but am getting a refund. It's not working out for me. I mostly print emails and that only seems to work by copy and pasting the content, sending that to print off their clipboard and running it through my MBP with the MacOS software they provide in case the app doesn't work without it. I wrote their tech support with the issue, and they advised it's not for me. Was embarrassed to describe my weird printer configure anyway, but there must be a way to do it through my router and have to look into that. Maybe there's an add-on for AirPrint or something...

I had good luck with Printer Pro which requires a helper application running on the Mac computer in order to get to the printer itself but I could print from pretty much anywhere I had a data connection. There was sometimes a considerable (minutes to hours) lag between executing the print command on the iOS device and the actual printing occurring and not all document formats are supported. The supported formats are PDF, Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Pages, Numbers, Keynote, TXT, HTML, JPG, and webarchive. There is also a Printer Lite from the same publisher, but I have no idea what is left out of the Lite version.

I haven't used Printer Pro in some time now because I got a Brother printer with built-in WiFi and since then I have used the Brother printing app and it is great as long as the printer is on the same WiFi network. Epson has similar iOS apps for its wireless printers which I would assume would work equally well.

See my first of two posts above for Lite vs. Pro.

My refresh interval needs to be reset.

Yikes! HandyPrint!

http://www.netputing.com/handyprint/

v3.1.5 works under Snowy. v5.0 for newer systems. Adds a CUPS file and turns the sharing on. Boom!

What iOS version are you running? The HandyPrint web site says they only support up to iOS 6 (current is 8), but maybe they are out-of-date with their info.

I am running iOS8. I took a chance and it worked. Anyway, 14 days free trial and then donate-ware. Be informed that printing with it does not launch the Print Monitor. Check how many pages you are about to print (for example, a website) before you hit PRINT because it seems like once you send something, you can only pause the printer and not delete the job. I had one hell of a time when I finally turned off the printer to try to clear the job, double printer jammy. That hasn't happened for years so the printer is where it is difficult to access and I have this freaking back problem.

PS: Software needs to install on the computer, not the iPad.