Simple AirPrint server for iPad, iPhone, Android, and Chrombook/Chromebox & LibreELEC too!

No matter what device you use printing is a necessay evil. If you try it Apple's way it can get pretty expensive buying a network direct printer to print from iOS.

This is not only for iOS, because the same solution fills the void in Android, Chromebook, and Chromebox too. If your printer is not compatible with OSX and you have an OSX machine this can also be useful to work-around that incompatibility.

Over the last several months I have tested a low cost Raspberry Pi 3 based print server. Although I use it mostly on Android, I have tested extensively from Chromebook as well.

My particular configuration used a $50 USD Raspberry Pi 3. The main trick is to ensure you have a printer with good linux driver support on the Raspberry Pi 3. Not all printers with Linux support have Linux drivers for Raspberry Pi 3. Many open source drivers are quite good though, and will work on Raspberry Pi.

Here is a good place to start checking printer compatibility:
http://www.openprinting.org/printers

Of course you can also check the printer manufacturer's web site

CUPS (Common Unix Printing System) used in Linux now has all AirPrint functionality built in. It will act as a Go-between for AirPrint and your printer. 

Installing a Raspberry Pi 3 based print server is a fairly straightforward process. It is a process I will not detail here as there are many guides on the Internet already. Here I will tell you how this can also work for Android, & Chromebook/Chromebox

In iOS once the print server is configured the printer should appear as any AirPrint device

On Android 7.0 and up you can install either the CUPS printing or Mopria Print. Your printer need not have android support directly.  I prefer Mopria Print over CUPS as the interface is more refined.

On Chromebook or Chromebox, you can install the CUPS or IPP printer extension.

LibreELEC, with Kodi, you can install the CUPS or IPP printer extension. This install in the Crome browser making printing available from the browser.

If your printer was incompatible with OSX, it is now compatible with OSX, and driverless. One such example is th HP Color Laserjet CP1215. This printer has no Mac OSX drivers available. It does have very good Linux driver support. http://www.openprinting.org/printer/HP/HP-Color_LaserJet_CP1215 and apparently is supported on Raspberry Pi 3 with those drivers. With the Raspberry Pi 3 between OSX and CP1215 you will have no issues printing although both Apple and HP will say you can not do it.

If you set up CUPS correctly you can even have Windows auto-install the drivers from the CUPS server. 

In any case  no matter what the mix of operating systems in your home or office you can use this method to work-around most any printer incompatibility with most an OS. In fact you can make a non OSX compatible printer OSX compatible! OSX and Windows will use any CUPS printer sending it generic PDF or Postscript data by way of the print server which the print server reformats for the printer.

It is fast cheap, reliable and far better than any stand-alone print server you buy.

While messing with the Raspberry Pi , you may also want to consider adding support for a scanner by way of SANE, or how about an Asterisk server to manage phone calls in the house? You want to transfer that call to the bedroom?

Aside from my Raspberry Pi 3 working as a print server it has been running as a scanner server and asterisk server. The scan server allows me to scan from Android, Windows, Linux or even using a web browser, all from the same scanner. As for Asterisk I am running 3 VoIP numbers in, a cellular network and a local fixed line. I get the advantage of least cost routing and have failover when the unreliable landline dies , as it sometimes does.