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Originally Posted by alee16
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Nice Idea, but is there a way to print directly from PDA to printer?
Is there another forum better related to this question?
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There are some solutions out there that will print directly from device to printer. Such as HP's Mobile Printing solution.
However, these solutions have two problems:
1. They are very limited in the document types they can print. While they may get the core document types that everybody uses (Word, Excel, etc.) they most likely won't be able to support document types that aren't included such industry standards like MS Office. In other words if you have an MS Office alternative, unless it can export to an MS Office format you won't be able to print those document types.
2. They are also very limited on printers. Some are limited to just one or two brands of printers, others are limited to printers that work on the PCL printer language standard as written by HP. And even then the printers have to be on a TCP/IP network that you can access with your Pocket PC. ActivePrint differs here primarily in that it will work with any Windows compatible printer whether it was the high end $500 model with all the wireless capabilities, or this week's special for $30 that works strictly on a USB connection, or some bottom of the line printer from 10 years ago and operates on a parallel printer connection.
One other point, ActivePrint has forward compatibility through the .Net Compact Framework. This means it is compatible with not just the Windows Mobile 2003 devices, but also Windows Mobile 2005.