iOS print without allowing UIPrintInteractionController to appear - iphone

Question

I am researching a potential app for a client, and I had a question I wasn't able to find the answer on. What I would like to do is print automatically, without having the UIPrintInteractionController get displayed. An important point I should make is this will not be a production app. I know that otherwise this could violate the user's privacy to just print without the user's consent, but again this will not be a public app on the App Store. One app I found that seems to be able to this is Printer Pro. The user is prompted to print a test page, and the page prints without the UIPrintInteractionController appearing - this app is on the store, so I'm assuming there's a legal way to do it. Anyone know how this is done?

Answer 1

As far as I know it is not possible to print in iOS7 without invoking the UIPrintInteractionController and displaying the system print dialog.
However, iOS8 now provides a provision for printing directly to a print without showing the dialog. The basic idea is that you obtain a UIPrinter object and use this in conjunction with the new - printToPrinter:completionHandler: method of the UIPrintInteractionController to print without showing the dialog.
Obtaining the UIPrinter object for your printer can be accomplished in a couple of ways.
The most straightforward is to use the new UIPrinterPickerController. But this would show a dialog and so doesn’t meet your needs.
The alternative is to create a printer via its URL using the UIPrinter method
+ printerWithURL:. I’m not entirely clear how to obtain this URL but it may be contained in the printer’s HTML admin pages. And I believe you can obtain it programmatically using the Bonjour API. More info here:
https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/Cocoa/Conceptual/NetServices/Introduction.html#//apple_ref/doc/uid/10000119i
Bonjour is a service discovery API which includes discovery of IPP printers, which the is the protocol used by AirPrint.
As for how the Printer Pro app is able to print without a dialog in iOS7, I would guess they are interacting with the printer at a very low level (e.g. raw HTTP posts, etc.).

Answer 2

Follow these steps to Print the Documents without prompting..
First Search for Devices Using the Below Code...
if (NSFoundationVersionNumber > NSFoundationVersionNumber_iOS_7_1) {
UIPrinterPickerController *printPicker = [UIPrinterPickerController printerPickerControllerWithInitiallySelectedPrinter:nil];
[printPicker presentAnimated:YES completionHandler:
^(UIPrinterPickerController *printerPicker, BOOL userDidSelect, NSError *error) {
if (userDidSelect) {
//User selected the item in the UIPrinterPickerController and got the printer details.
[UIPrinterPickerController printerPickerControllerWithInitiallySelectedPrinter:printerPicker.selectedPrinter];
// Here you will get the printer and printer details.ie,
// printerPicker.selectedPrinter, printerPicker.selectedPrinter.displayName, printerPicker.selectedPrinter.URL etc. So you can display the printer name in your label text or button title.
NSURL *printerURL = printerPicker.selectedPrinter.URL;
NSLog(#"printerURL--->%#",printerURL.absoluteString);
NSUserDefaults *defaults = [NSUserDefaults standardUserDefaults];
[defaults setObject:[printerURL absoluteString] forKey:#"printURL"];
[defaults synchronize];
}
}];
}
And Print the Documents by without prompting by using the below code...
if (NSFoundationVersionNumber > NSFoundationVersionNumber_iOS_7_1) {
NSUserDefaults *defaults = [NSUserDefaults standardUserDefaults];
UIPrinter *currentPrinterObj = [UIPrinter printerWithURL:[NSURL URLWithString:[defaults stringForKey:[defaults stringForKey:#"printURL"]]]];
UIPrintInteractionController *controller = [UIPrintInteractionController sharedPrintController];
if(currentPrinterObj) {
[controller printToPrinter:currentPrinterObj completionHandler:^(UIPrintInteractionController *printController, BOOL completed, NSError *error) {
if(completed) {
} else {
NSLog(#"FAILED! due to error in domain %# with error code %u", error.domain, error.code);
}
}];
}
}