Airprint Contents of a Uiview

AirPrint contents of a UIView

I'm not sure if this is the proper way to do it, but I ended up solving this by converting the view to a UIImage and then setting it as the print controller's printingItem.

Updated code:

// This is the View I want to print
// Just a 200x200 blue square
var testView = UIView(frame: CGRectMake(0, 0, 200, 200))
testView.backgroundColor = UIColor.blueColor()

let printInfo = UIPrintInfo(dictionary:nil)!
printInfo.outputType = UIPrintInfoOutputType.General
printInfo.jobName = "My Print Job"

// Set up print controller
let printController = UIPrintInteractionController.sharedPrintController()
printController!.printInfo = printInfo

// Assign a UIImage version of my UIView as a printing iten
printController?.printingItem = testView!.toImage()

// Do it
printController!.presentFromRect(self.frame, inView: self, animated: true, completionHandler: nil)

The toImage() method is an extension to UIView:

extension UIView {
    func toImage() -> UIImage {
        UIGraphicsBeginImageContextWithOptions(bounds.size, false, UIScreen.mainScreen().scale)

        drawViewHierarchyInRect(self.bounds, afterScreenUpdates: true)

        let image = UIGraphicsGetImageFromCurrentImageContext()
        UIGraphicsEndImageContext()
        return image
    }
}

Open to alternative approaches if anyone has one!

Printing the view in iOS with Swift

I have found the answer to my question by modifying the code found here: AirPrint contents of a UIView

//create an extension to covert the view to an image
extension UIView {
 func toImage() -> UIImage {
    UIGraphicsBeginImageContextWithOptions(bounds.size, false, UIScreen.mainScreen().scale)

    drawViewHierarchyInRect(self.bounds, afterScreenUpdates: true)

    let image = UIGraphicsGetImageFromCurrentImageContext()
    UIGraphicsEndImageContext()
    return image
 }
}

//In your view controller    
@IBAction func printButton(sender: AnyObject) {

    let printInfo = UIPrintInfo(dictionary:nil)
    printInfo.outputType = UIPrintInfoOutputType.General
    printInfo.jobName = "My Print Job"

    // Set up print controller
    let printController = UIPrintInteractionController.sharedPrintController()
    printController.printInfo = printInfo

    // Assign a UIImage version of my UIView as a printing iten
    printController.printingItem = self.view.toImage()

    // If you want to specify a printer
    guard let printerURL = URL(string: "Your printer URL here, e.g. ipps://HPDC4A3E0DE24A.local.:443/ipp/print") else { return }
    guard let currentPrinter = UIPrinter(url: printerURL) else { return }                     

    printController.print(to: currentPrinter, completionHandler: nil)

    // Do it
    printController.presentFromRect(self.view.frame, inView: self.view, animated: true, completionHandler: nil)
}

Air Printing of a UIView generates white pages

FWIW here's complete working code to print a bitmap from any UIView from iPad/iPhone

NOTE, THIS ONLY PRINTS A BITMAP.

Note that (bizarrely) iOS seems to NOT INCLUDE the concept of rendering a UIView to postscript .. Print a UIView, but NOT by rendering as a bitmap image

In other words the following seems to be meaningless in iOS, as yet...

UIViewPrintFormatter *f = [self.view viewPrintFormatter];

Anyway the following will print (JUST AS A BITMAP) absolutely any UIView whatsoever...

You simply use renderInContext: or,

for more modern code,

the combination drawViewHierarchyInRect: and UIGraphicsGetImageFromCurrentImageContext()

- (IBAction)printB:(id)sender
    {
    // we want to print a normal view ... some UILabels, maybe a black line

    // in this technique, depressingly we CREATE AN IMAGE of the view...

    // step 1. make a UIImage, of the whole view.

    UIGraphicsBeginImageContextWithOptions(self.printMe.bounds.size, NO, 0.0);

    // [self.printMe.layer renderInContext:UIGraphicsGetCurrentContext()];
    // UIImage *asAnImage = UIGraphicsGetImageFromCurrentImageContext();
    // .... or, more futuristically.....
    [self.printMe drawViewHierarchyInRect:self.printMe.bounds
        afterScreenUpdates:NO];
    UIImage *snapshotImage = UIGraphicsGetImageFromCurrentImageContext();

    UIGraphicsEndImageContext();

    // step 2. choose grayscale, etc

    UIPrintInfo *info = [UIPrintInfo printInfo];
    info.orientation = UIPrintInfoOrientationPortrait;
    info.outputType = UIPrintInfoOutputGrayscale;

    // step 3, print that UIImage

    UIPrintInteractionController *pic =
       [UIPrintInteractionController sharedPrintController];
    pic.delegate = self;
    //pic.printingItem = asAnImage;
    pic.printingItem = snapshotImage;
    pic.printInfo = info;

    UIPrintInteractionCompletionHandler completionHandler =
    ^(UIPrintInteractionController *pic, BOOL completed, NSError *error)
        {
        if (error)
            NSLog(@"failed... %@ %ld", error.domain, (long)error.code);
        if (completed)
            NSLog(@"completed yes");
        else
            NSLog(@"completed no");
        };     

    [pic presentAnimated:YES completionHandler:completionHandler];
    }

It's really that simple, fortunately. But it is a rendered bitmap image.

How to print a UITextField text by AirPrint

From this, the printingItem:

The object must be an instance of the NSURL, NSData, UIImage, or
ALAsset class.

so probably you have to pass something like:

NSData* data=[_txtmainnote.text dataUsingEncoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding];
print.printingItem = data;

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