Connecting your Printer, iPad, and internet all together
There are different ways to connect your iPad & printer together. Because your printer must be connected to the same network as your iPad, it's important to make sure your iPad is connected to your printer AND the internet at the same time. This article shows you how to do this.
You cannot connect a printer directly to the iPad via USB as Apple does not support this.
Once you've used this article to connect everything together, then you need to add the printer in the app. To do this please see our article How to Setup Printing
Do not use Personal Hotspot on the same device the Booth.Events app is running on, because it likely means our app cannot communicate with your printer(s).
First get your Network set up
We highly recommend using wired/ethernet printing
"Ethernet" is wired networking - the cables look like the one in the photo below. Because Apple doesn't support direct USB printing, the next best thing is printing over ethernet: faster, more reliable, and not affected by interference or congested airwaves. Best of all it leaves your iPad wi-fi free to grab internet access from anywhere.
Hot tip: if you're setting this up at home, turn off your home wi-fi by unplugging your router. Yes this means you'll have no internet (warn the poor teenagers first!), but this eliminates a serious source of error: you won't accidentally be using your home wi-fi to get printing working.
Why is that important? Because your home wi-fi won't be available at the event!
Get the hardware for wired printing
The easiest way to give your USB-C iPad the ability to use ethernet is to connect a USB-C hub that has an ethernet port - we recommend the Dockteck 7-in-1 hub with ethernet. If you have an older lightning-port iPad you can buy an Apple adapter that creates an ethernet port and allows the iPad to be powered, but this rules out connecting a USB camera so instead we recommend upgrading your iPad to a USB-C model.
The Dockteck hub is part of Our Recommended Hardware. Not all hubs are equal! iPads are very picky about hubs: if something's not working we're going to ask you to try a different hub.
Connect your wired printing hardware:
- Plug one end of the ethernet cable into the USB-C hub (or the adapter that plugs into the iPad).
- Plug the other end of the ethernet cable into your PC, print server, or AirPrint-enabled Printer.
- Check that your iPad's ethernet settings are correct:
Settings App -> Ethernet -> (your adapter name) -> Configure IP should be set to "Automatic" unless you know what you're doing.
Before iOS app version 1.49.1, you used to have to set up the ethernet settings on both the PC side, and the iPad side. As of 1.49.1 this is no longe necessary.
Another Option: Wi-fi Printing
Connect your iPad and PC / print server / AirPrint-enabled Printer to the same wi-fi network. Make sure it is not venue wi-fi or event wi-fi — never use this for printing — and not your home wi-fi either.
If possible, choose a wi-fi hotspot that also provides internet so guests can email & text their photos too. Your cellphone's hotspot is an option if it's going to be available for the whole event. Another option is to purchase a 4G/5G portable router (modem).
If you connect your iPad's wi-fi directly to your print server then it will not have internet access. Some print servers can connect a secondary wi-fi to the internet in order to share internet to the iPad, but please note that we find this setup to be unreliable in the field: print servers do not have good enough wi-fi signal strength for real use. Use wired printing instead.
Got Cellular Data on your iPad?
After connecting the iPad wi-fi to the print server, check if you can access the internet. If not then you need to tell your iPad to stop trying to get internet access via wi-fi, so that it uses your cellular data instead. To do this, follow the instructions in this article to change the configuration of your wifi network: the "For Wi-Fi" part.
Beware of this cellular data gotcha: if you make your iPad with cellular data be the hotspot that your print server or PC connects to, the app cannot communicate with the print server / PC.
Instead, do it the other way around: turn off the hotspot on the iPad, tell your print server / PC to make a wi-fi hotspot, and connect your iPad's wi-fi to that.
We do not recommend using wi-fi printing. It's much slower, less reliable, and more likely you won't have internet access at the same time as being able to print.
Use wired printing instead.
Next, set up printer sharing:
There are 3 choices, choose one:
I have a PC and want to share my printer from it
—> Continue here at our Print.Events help article: https://print.events
I have a Mac and want to share my printer from it
Follow these steps so that the Booth.Events app running on your iPad can print via your Mac.
Beware of this Mac gotcha: if you run the Booth.Events app on the same Mac that has the printer shared, the app will not be able to print to it. The app will "see" the printer, but there will be a red error that it cannot contact the printer. This is currently a frustrating limitation from Apple. We're working on it. The workaround is to use an iPad Share Station that's on the same network as the Mac.
(1) Open the macOS Settings app, go to Printers & Scanners, select your printer, and turn on the Sharing switch as shown by the red arrow in the following screenshot:
(2) Click "Open Sharing Settings..." as shown by the green arrow
(3) Flip the Printer Sharing switch on (first red arrow). Then select your printer on the left, and change the "Everyone" from "No Access" to "Can Print" (second red arrow)
(4) Hit Done and double-check your changes saved.
You can now add the printer from other devices connected to the same network.
I have a print server, or a printer that supports AirPrint
If you have a printer that supports AirPrint, you can now directly add it in the app. See our How to Setup Printing article for how to do that.
If you have a print server, you need to configure it for your printer's paper size and your desired printing options. Please see our videos below.
Wondering what to buy? We recommend the PC approach above. Check out the video on the Print.Events page where we show two cheap $200 Amazon PCs that work well.
If your printer doesn't support AirPrint you cannot connect it via USB, you must use one of the approaches above.
The AirCast Pro website is here: https://aircastpro.com
The DNP WCM Plus website is here: https://dnpphoto.com/en-us/Products/Accessories/WCMPlus
AirCastPro II
Here's a video showing the connections for the AirCastPro, using ethernet via a USB-C hub. The video also covers how to do the initial configuration of the AirCastPro, including changing paper sizes / cuts.
DNP WCM Plus
Here's a video showing the connections for the DNP WCM Plus, using ethernet via a USB-C hub. The video also covers how to do the initial configuration of the WCM Plus, including changing paper sizes / cuts.
If you have an advanced setup that requires a manual ethernet setup and you are a DNP WCM Plus user, please note that confusingly you must use an IP address on the 192.168.5.x subnet, even though the admin interface of the WCM Plus is at 192.168.4.1.
If you can't access the internet after connecting to your print server
Newer print servers like the AirCastPro II and DNP WCM Plus do not have this problem, but older units like the DNP WCM2 or WCM3 do: even though your wifi is connected to the internet, the iPad doesn't have internet access because it's trying to use the internet over the ethernet instead.
Don't worry, there's a workaround! Check out the instructions in this article to change the configuration of your ethernet network (Settings App -> Ethernet, which is only available when the USB-C hub or adapter is plugged in).