Driverless printing: IPP Everywhere, AirPrint and Mopria explained

What driverless printing means

Driverless printing means printing without installing software from the printer’s manufacturer. Instead of a driver that knows one printer model’s private language, the computer or phone speaks a standard protocol and sends a standard file format that the printer understands.

It’s why an iPhone can print to a printer it has never seen, and why adding a printer on a recent Mac or Linux laptop often takes one click. For anyone who shares printers, it removes the most tedious part of printing: finding, installing and updating drivers on every device.

What a printer driver actually does

A driver does two jobs:

1. It describes the printer to the operating system: paper sizes, trays, color, two-sided printing, finishing options.
2. It translates the document into the format the printer accepts, which for many printers used to be a private page description language.

Driverless printing replaces both. The printer describes itself when asked, over the network, and it accepts at least one standard format. The device doesn’t need to know the model; it asks the printer what it can do and sends something it understands.

IPP: the protocol underneath

All three driverless approaches are built on the Internet Printing Protocol (IPP), a standard for sending print jobs and asking printers about themselves over a network. With IPP, a device can ask a printer which paper sizes, color modes and file formats it supports, send a job, and follow it until it’s finished.

Two other pieces complete the picture:

• Discovery: printers announce themselves on the local network with DNS Service Discovery, the technology Apple calls Bonjour. That’s how printers appear in a list without anyone typing an address.
• A file format both sides know: PDF, JPEG, PWG Raster or Apple’s raster format. A raster format is a simple picture of each page, which even an inexpensive printer can print.

IPP Everywhere, AirPrint and Mopria differ mainly in who defines the rules and which formats they require.

IPP Everywhere

IPP Everywhere is an open standard from the Printer Working Group (PWG), the industry body that also maintains IPP. Its first version was approved in January 2013 as PWG 5100.14, and version 1.1 followed in 2020.

An IPP Everywhere printer must support IPP/2.0, announce itself with DNS Service Discovery, and accept PWG Raster and JPEG. PDF is recommended. PWG Raster has its own standard, PWG 5102.4.

Printer makers can self-certify their models with the PWG’s free test tools, and the PWG publishes the list of certified printers. Linux distributions rely on IPP Everywhere heavily: CUPS, the print system on Linux and macOS, can set up an IPP Everywhere printer with no driver at all.

AirPrint

AirPrint is Apple’s driverless printing program. Apple announced it in September 2010 and shipped it in iOS 4.2 later that year, then brought it to the Mac with OS X Lion. It uses IPP and Bonjour like IPP Everywhere, and Apple certifies the printers that carry the AirPrint name.

The difference is the format. AirPrint printers accept Apple’s own raster format (often listed as image/urf), and many also accept PDF and JPEG. Apple hasn’t published a full specification of its raster format, so software outside Apple’s platforms has had to work it out.

In practice, a large share of AirPrint printers also support IPP Everywhere or PDF, but not all of them. A printer that only accepts Apple’s raster format is driverless for iPhones and Macs, and not necessarily for anything else.

Mopria

Mopria comes from the Mopria Alliance, a non-profit founded in 2013 by Canon, HP, Samsung and Xerox to make printing from Android and other devices work without drivers. Google joined in 2026.

Mopria certifies printers rather than defining a new protocol: a Mopria-certified printer prints over IPP with standard formats. Mopria’s technology is built into Android’s default print service, and the Mopria Print Service app is on Google Play, which is why most Android phones can print to a nearby printer without an app from its manufacturer.

Mopria also matters on Windows. Windows has a built-in IPP class driver that supports Mopria-certified printers, and Microsoft is steering Windows printing towards it.

How they compare

Summary as of November 2026. The standards evolve; check the PWG, Apple and Mopria sites for current details.

The overlap is large. Many printers carry all three names, because supporting IPP with PDF and PWG Raster covers most of what each program asks for.

Windows, Mac, Linux and phones

• iPhone and iPad print with AirPrint.
• Android prints through its default print service, which includes Mopria’s technology.
• Mac adds AirPrint and IPP printers without a driver, through CUPS.
• Linux uses CUPS and IPP Everywhere, and prints to most driverless printers out of the box.
• Windows has an IPP class driver for Mopria-certified printers. Microsoft announced in 2023 that it is ending servicing of third-party printer drivers through Windows Update over several years, and Windows 11 has an optional “Windows protected print mode” that uses only its built-in IPP printing. Existing drivers keep working, but the direction is clear: printing on Windows is moving to driverless IPP.

How to check your printer

There are four ways, from quickest to most thorough:

1. Look for the logos on the box, the printer or its spec sheet: AirPrint, Mopria, or IPP Everywhere.
2. Check the lists: Apple lists AirPrint printers, the Mopria Alliance lists certified products, and the PWG lists IPP Everywhere printers.
3. Open the printer’s web page (type its IP address in a browser) and make sure IPP is turned on. Some office printers ship with it off.
4. Ask the printer. Over IPP, a printer reports the formats it accepts. Look for application/pdf, image/pwg-raster and image/urf. On Linux and Mac, ipptool can do this; for a whole office, a scanner is easier.

What driverless printing doesn’t cover

• Older printers. Printers from before IPP Everywhere and AirPrint became common may only work with a driver.
• Some finishing options. IPP can describe stapling, hole-punching and special trays, but not every printer exposes them, and not every app asks.
• Account codes. Office printers that require a department code or user code on every job need that configured, whatever the driver.
• USB printers. Driverless printing is mostly about network printers. USB printers need IPP over USB support on both sides.

Where Commontray fits

Commontray uses driverless printing to remove drivers twice over. People print from a web page in their browser, so their devices need nothing at all. Commontray then sends the job to the printer over IPP, as a PDF if the printer accepts it, or converted to PWG Raster for IPP Everywhere printers.

That means Commontray works with printers that take PDF or support IPP Everywhere, which covers most network printers sold in the last decade. Printers that only accept Apple’s raster format aren’t supported yet, and printers that need a driver aren’t supported.

• Ready: the printer accepts PDF over IPP.
• Ready (raster): the printer supports IPP Everywhere; Commontray converts pages to PWG Raster.
• Not yet: the printer only accepts Apple’s raster format.
• Not supported: the printer needs a driver.

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