Connect a Printer

Booth.Events supports the following printers:

any printer that supports AirPrint
a DNP WPS unit with a connected printer
a DNP WCM unit with a connected printer (select AirPrint)

Don't have a printer yet, not sure what to buy? We recommend the DNP QW410 paired with the DNP WCM2 print server unit. It's a fast, small, lightweight dye-sub printer that has excellent reviews.

Start by getting your printer connected to your network

You'll want to get your printer connected and have internet connectivity at the same time.

We wrote an article to make it easy! Read our Connecting your Printer, iPad, and internet all together article.

Where to find printer settings in the app

In the iPad app, open an event and go to the last page of settings to find the printer settings. You can see them in this screenshot:

Printing is OFF by default

By default printing is turned off, and in iOS-managed mode.

If you want printing at your event, turn on printing by toggling the "Print" switch you can see in the image above.

iOS-managed versus App-managed printing

There are two ways that the app can support printing:

iOS-managed: guests see a popup from iOS every time. Works with 3rd-party software AirPrint solutions (see note below)
App-managed: when you add a printer to the app you move to this mode

When printing is in iOS-managed mode, your guests will see a popup from iOS every time they print:

In iOS-managed mode your guests will see a popup when they print

If you add a printer so that the app is in app-managed printing mode then your guests will not see an iOS popup. Instead they'll select their number of prints directly from the app:

In App-managed printing mode your guests choose the number of copies in the app, and there's no popup

To change from iOS-managed to App-managed, touch the "iOS-managed Printing" rectangle in the image above and add your printer, as shown in this image:

Adding a printer to switch to App-managed printing mode

To change from App-managed to iOS-managed, touch the same rectangle and remove the printer.

Are you using a software-based print server? Use iOS-managed mode

If what you are printing to isn't a real AirPrint-printer and isn't certified by Apple, such as software like Printopia or a raspberry Pi solution running CUPS/gutenberg, then app-managed printing is likely to fail. Apple has stringent requirements for AirPrint and most of these software-based solutions do not work with printing without the iOS poup.

App-managed printing: How to Add a Printer

Please refer to the image above, "Adding a printer to switch to App-managed printing mode".

If you have an AirPrint printer or a DNP WCM unit, select "AirPrint", then find your printer in the list and select it. Don't see it? Make sure your iPad is connected to the same network (wifi or ethernet) as your printer: read our Connecting your Printer, iPad, and internet all together article.

If you have a DNP WPS unit, select "DNP WPS". The app will first try to find the WPS unit on its default IP address of 192.168.43.1. If it's not found there, you'll be prompted to enter the IP address of the WPS unit, which you should be able to find on the screen of the unit. After the unit is found, you'll get a choice of the paper-queue selection. Note that 4x6 means 4 x 6" print media with no cuts, and 2x2x6" means 4x6" print media with a cut down the middle (2 strips).

Is your printer cutting off some of the photo?

See those inset settings in the screenshot above? They're what you can use to add extra space around the image that is printed, which will help stop your printer from cutting off some of the photo.

If your printer is cutting off too much of the photo, then you want to set positive values to "shrink" the photo area that gets printed by adding insets to the image. The Canon Selphy line of printers aggressively chops off edges of photos, here are some pixel values to try: top 52, right 37, bottom 55, left 32. Every printer is a bit different so you'll need to play around with it!

If your printer prints too small, we recommend changing your printer settings (on the printer) instead if possible.

Is your printer not working?

Please check out our Troubleshooting Printing article.

Want to setup your DNP printer to print strips?

Please check out our Setup your DNP WCM to print strips article.