1.1 What Is iPrint?

iPrint lets mobile employees, business partners, and customers access printers from a variety of remote locations using existing Internet connections. Whether users are working in an office building, telecommuting from home, or attending a sales meeting in another country, iPrint ensures that they can print documents quickly, easily, and reliably.

Using a Web browser, users point to a Web page that displays the available printers to install. By clicking a printer, the iPrint client is installed (if not installed previously), the printer’s driver is downloaded, and a printer is created on the user’s workstation, enabling the user to send documents to the printer from any application on the desktop.

Using iPrint, mobile users no longer need to contact a busy network administrator to find out a printer’s name and context and the required printer driver. Instead, mobile users work within a familiar Web browser to locate nearby printers and download and install the latest printer drivers. Companies can reduce communication costs by reducing the need to fax documents between offices. Instead, companies can use their existing Internet connections to print documents to remote printers.

iPrint Uses Industry Standards

iPrint uses the Internet Printing Protocol (IPP), an industry standard, to eliminate the complexities of printing over the Internet and to make location-based printing a reality.

The benefits of IPP include the following:

For more information about IPP, see the documents available on the Printer Working Group Web site.

iPrint Benefits

In addition to the benefits of IPP, the Novell® implementation of iPrint adds the following value:

For secure printing needs, iPrint integrates with Novell eDirectory™ to ensure that only authorized users can access the printer. Users are required to authenticate with their eDirectory username and password. Print data is also encrypted to ensure that sensitive print data is kept secure and unaltered.