Tag: printer setup

You can have Alexa print documents on your HP printer

simonmackay 05/02/2018 Current and Future Trends, Network Printers and All-in-ones, Voice-driven home assistant platforms No Comments

Articles

Amazon Echo on kitchen bench press photo courtesy of Amazon USA

You can ask Amazon Alexa to print documents through your HP printer

HP Voice Printing Now Supports Alexa, Google Assistant & Cortana | Android Headlines

Alexa can now control your HP printer | Engadget

No, you don’t need a voice-controlled printer in your life | The Verge

From the horse’s mouth

HP Printing And PCs

Support Page (Amazon Alexa, Google Home, Microsoft Cortana)

Press Release

My Comments

You can now ask Amazon Alexa to print “download-to-print” resources or other material through your ePrint-capable HP network printer. This was a feature initially and quietly offered for Google Home and Microsoft Cortana but HP have given it a lot of space on Amazon’s voice-assistant platform due to it becoming the most popular of these platforms.

… as you could with Google Home

With all of these platforms, the printing function has to be added on as a Skill through the respective platform’s app store. As well, the printer must be able to support HP ePrint or Web Services printing, which enables printing of various printable resources from various content providers as well as supporting “email-to-print” where you can send a document to a machine-specific email address for it to be printed at that machine.

Infact I have given some space to the HP ePrint ecosystem through reviewing a number of HP printers that have this functionality as well as writing some articles on this subsystem such as implementing it in a public-printing concept.

… and your HP Envy 120 designer all-in-one inkjet printer could turn them out at your call

For this functionality to work with your printer, you have to supply its ePrint email address to the Skill as part of configuring it. Another limitation is that you can only bind one printer to that Skill which can be a limitation with multiple-printer households, especially where you may choose to run an HP Envy 100, Envy 120 or similar machine as a secondary machine kept in the kitchen.

Once this is set up, you could ask Alexa to print out something like an art-therapy colouring page or some ruled paper and your network-capable HP printer will turn these out.

What is still happening is that HP is still showing strong committment to the idea of the home or small-office printer being a highly-capable appliance rather than just a peripheral for a regular computer running a full-blown operating system. This means that the host device shouldn’t need to be dependent on a print driver to suit that particular machine. This committment was demonstrated through HP’s network-capable home printers and MFCs having UPnP Printing, then establishing the ePrint ecosystem with its email-to-print and print-from-the-control-panel functions, and now using your smart speaker to order documents to be printed.

What needs to happen is that other printer manufacturers show a strong committment towards home and small-business printers being able to work as a “printing appliance” rather than just as a computer peripheral.

This includes:

printing “download-to-print” resource collections hosted by content providers and other organisations or in storage locations on local, network or online storage locations using the printer’s control panel;
supporting voice-driven home assistant platforms and other control surfaces;
and running a polished “scan-to-email” and “enail-to-print” ecosystem.

Similarly, having other dedicated-purpose devices like Smart TVs, games consoles and the new crop of smart appliances being able to print to these devices without the need for particular software drivers.

Then it could see these devices become highly capable and as part of the smart-home ecosystem.

HP and others use Mopria to advance driver-free printing for mobile devices

simonmackay 25/09/2013 Current and Future Trends, Network Printers and All-in-ones No Comments

Article

HP, allies launch Mopria to keep printers relevant in mobile era | Mobile – CNET News

My Comments

HP Envy 120 designer all-in-one inkjet printer

A common reality with the desktop printer is that you need to implement drivers on a desktop computer in order to have the printer work properly with that computer. This has confused many people who simply wanted to “walk up and print” at another location or install a newer printer. The situation is very difficult for mobile and embedded devices where these devices require limited memory space or hard-to-adapt software.

There have been various attempts at providing driver-free printing for mobile and embedded computers. One of these was UPnP Printing which allowed one to print a JPEG image or XHTML-formatted document on a suitable network printer but this was only followed through by HP with their consumer multifunction desktop printers and Nokia with their Symbian-based feature phones. HP also took this further with their ePrint “print-by-email” setup which just about every consumer and small-business HP desktop printer is equipped with.

Apple made a bit of headway with this issue by implementing AirPrint for their iOS devices and Macintosh computers running MacOS X Lion. Here, this was totally “driver-free” and more printer manufacturers came on board offering it for newer printer ranges or as “field-update” firmware for some of their existing models.

There needed to be an effort that is centred around one or more existing standards and augmented by a logo-driven marketing platform in order to provide driver-free printing to other regular, mobile and embedded computing platforms. No doubt, as Apple and their fanbois have their faith behind the AirPrint ecosystem, the Mopria ecosystem will be offered as a complementary system for other “open-frame” computing platforms.

The Mopria platform is recognising the idea that the smartphone or tablet that runs a mobile operating system is serving users as either a sole or anciliary computing device. But I would also like to see Microsoft and the open-source community adopt Mopria as a driver-free system-wide printing solution for Windows and Linux respectively in order to provide the true “walk-up and print” ability to regular computers that run these operating systems.

The embedded device community could place value on Mopria as a way to add network printing to all sorts of dedicated devices. For example, the smart TV or set-top box could exploit Mopria for interactive TV’s printing needs such as coupon printing. Similarly, devices like energy meters or “wellness” devices could use the technology to print trend-based charts for energy used or personal-wellness stats.

This may be early days yet but by using a device standard with a distinct customer-recognisable logo, Mopria could be in a position to provide driver-free printing for most applications. They also need the help of other industry standards groups like DLNA or Blu-Ray Disc to provide leverage for Mopria in the embedded-device space.

Achieving a failover printer setup in your business

simonmackay 17/09/2012 Computing Tips, Network Printers and All-in-ones, Printers and Scanners, SOHO / Small business computer setups No Comments

Brother HL-2240D compact monochrome laser printer – an example of a workflow printer

I have come across situations with small offices such as clinics who run one or more dedicated laser printers that turns out receipts, invoices and other documents as part of the customer-facing business workflow. Some offices may run the printers also for some back-office requirements like preparing reports or balance sheets for that workstation.

But there is the situation where the printer can break down, usually with a mechanical failure like frequent paper jamming. This can happen more frequently as a machine ages and is worked hard in a busy office. It is analogous to that situation most of us experience when a car gets to that point in its life where it frequently lives at the mechanic’s workshop and drills a hole in your pocket because it is always breaking down.

This situation can impair the business’s workflow especially as one has to work out how to rectify a paper jam or, in some cases, reset the machine. As well, no woman would want to ruin their beautifully-done fingernails knocking them on the machine’s internals while removing jammed up paper.

In these situations, it is a good idea to set up a failover printing arrangement where you have other printers that come in to play if the workstation’s primary machine fails. This is easier to achieve if all of the printers accessible to the office or reception area are linked to the network.

For example, you could use a multifunction for this purpose even though each workstation computer has a dedicated laser printer like the Brother HL-2240D or Dell 1130n. The multifunction printer, which is often expected to serve as the main copier and fax machine for the organisation, could be a machine like the Brother MFC-8370DN or HP LaserJet M1536dnf for a monochrome variety or a Brother MFC-9460CDN or HP LaserJet Pro Color M475 Series for a colour variety. Even one of the high-end business inkjets like the HP OfficeJet Pro 8600 could do the job just as well.

Some environments that have two or more workstations may prefer to have one workflow printer per workstation. Here, it would be preferable to connect the printers via the network rather than directly to the workstation computers. Here this can allow the other workflow printer to be used as a failover measure.

HP LaserJet M1536dnf monochrome laser multifunction printer – an example of a multifunction expected to be a small business’s copier and fax

But what you would have to do is to set up the workstations to use the printer that is local to them as well as this main multifunction printer or other workflow printer. This may be as simple as adding the driver set for the main printer to the computers or it may also require the line-of-business software to be set up to allow the use of two or more printers.

As far as default printers are concerned, you would have to set the primary dedicated printer as the default machine, then have the users select the main multifunction printer as a secondary printer whenever their primary printer fails. This can be done as part of ordering the print job in most software or going to the Printers option in the operating system and setting the multifunction printer as the default while the single-function workflow printer is out of action.

If you run a server-driven printing environment, it may be worth looking at options that allow failover printing so that print jobs that come from one workstation appear at particular printers in an order of availability.

Once you look at this option for setting up multiple printers in your office or reception area, you could then be sure of an arrangement where a printer failure doesn’t impede on your business workflow or affect how your business is perceived by the people your business benefits.