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Printer language for Pixma MX410 all-in-one

sootsnoot
Apprentice

My MX410 has been working well for several years, printing wirelessly from a Windows laptop and sending and receiving FAXes. But now my laptop is getting finicky, and I'd like to be able to print from my iPad. I understand that the MX410 does not have Airprint, so the iPad cannot print directly to it by default.

 

However, I found an iOS/iPad app called Printer Pro from Readdle, Inc, that supports printing directly to Bonjour printers that do not support Airprint. The app works perfectly with several older HP printers I have at home that do not support Airprint.

 

But trying to set it up for the MX410 I ran into trouble. The app properly detects the MX410 on the network as a Bonjour printer, just as it did for my old HP printers. But when I try to print a test page in the setup, the printer does nothing (with the HP printers, the test page printed right away, and I just had to adjust the printable area). But when I report to the app that nothing printed, it brings up a page requesting the printer language understood by the printer. It displays a fairly long list of possible printer languages, and I tried each of them (I think) and none of them worked. The list includes the following entries and a number of others (I don't have access to the printer at the moment and I didn't capture the list):

  • ESC/P
  • ESC/Page
  • LIPS
  • PCL
  • PS

I called technical support, and Brandon in support seemed somewhat unfamiliar with what I meant by printer language. He gave me the following list of acronyms he said applied to the MX410 interfaces, but I don't recognize any of them as printer languages:

  • BIP
  • OPP
  • SPP
  • HCRP

I can get the complete list of printer language choices from the app in the next day or two and post that, but I was wondering if anyone here knows what language(s) the MX410 uses (and/or if it's possible to specify what language it should use, I know some Epsom printers give a choice of PostScript or PCL). It is quite a slow process to choose a language to try and wait to see if it works for the app; trying a language displays a busy spinner and you never know if it's just taking a long time or if it's never coming back. So it's possible that one of the choices would have worked if I'd been more patient. So I thought it would be a good idea to try to find out what the correct choice would be.

 

Any help appreciated! Anybody have experience using this app with the MX410?

 

5 REPLIES 5

sootsnoot
Apprentice

I got so frustrated with this that I actually went to [Removed link per forum community guidelines] to see if I could buy an answer on how to print from the iPad directly to this printer. It took more than 7 hours to get a response from one of their "experts", and he suggested buying a $20 app that runs on a Mac(!) to provide Airprint support for it. I already have the Airprint service running on my Windows laptop (and it works great and was *free*), but he didn't seem to pick up on the fact that there is no computer (either PC or Mac) near the printer. So I wound up giving him a "Poor" rating and requesting a refund from justanswer.

 

But while I was waiting for a response, I did some more googling about finding the printer language used by Canon printers, and came across a response to a question about it (asked for the same reason) suggesting that the best way to print directly to a non-Airprint printer from an iPad was usually to look for an app produced by the printer manufacturer! And sure enough, Canon has a couple of *free* apps, one called "Canon PRINT Inkjet/SELPHY" for printing directly from iOS to PIXMA printers (there's another one, just called "Canon PRINT for Business" for other printers). I haven't yet been able to test it with the MX410 since it's a long drive away through the freezing rain, so I suppose it might not work with it. But I can't believe that neither Canon technical support nor justanswer even mentioned it!

Now that I've had the chance to drive up to the printer location, I've verified that the "Canon PRINT Inkjet/SELPHY" app works fine with the MX410, both printing and scanning from the iPad.

 

It seems to be slightly less usable than the "Printer Pro from Readdle, Inc" app in that the Canon PRINT Inkjey/SELPHY app doesn't show up in as many places to export a file. For example, in gmail if I open a PDF attachment I can click the export icon and see a "Print with Printer Pro" option right beside the iOS "Print" option (which of course only supports Airprint printers), but there is no direct way I could find to print through the Canon PRINT app. As a workaround, I can export the attachment to google drive, and then I can open it in google drive which has an option to copy to Canon PRINT.

 

However, I cannot find a way to print a web page using Canon PRINT. Both Safari and Chrome on the iPad provide "Print with Printer Pro" as targets for exporting/copying a web page, but they don't offer google drive as a target (and don't offer Canon PRINT, either).

 

So unless there's a way to get the Canon PRINT app to show up as an export target the same way that the Printer PRO app does, then I'm still looking for the name of the printer language used by the MX410, so that I can configure the Printer PRO app to be able to use it.

Hello.

 

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This helped so much, thank you!!!

I was able to download "Canon PRINT Inkjet/SELPHY" and am able to print pictures to my MX410. I am able to save and see documents in the app, but when i try and print, it looks for an airprint printer, which i obviuosly do not have. 

Any help, or is there another set up i am missing. 

Much appreciated

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