Transports, at a glance
A transport is the path a print job takes from the Printing service to the physical paper. Each printer you register picks one transport. The same printer model can be driven through different transports depending on what best fits your environment.
PrintNode (cloud)
The PrintNode cloud service relays jobs to an agent installed on a Windows, macOS, or Linux machine at your site. Good fit when:
- You want a vendor-managed cloud pipeline with no network setup.
- Your printers live behind NAT or on restricted Wi-Fi.
- You already have a PrintNode account.
Note: PrintNode is a third-party paid service billed separately from NOWAITN. If you do not have a PrintNode account, choose a different transport.
Dedicated print server (coming soon)
A NOWAITN-built relay + agent you install on any always-on PC, Mac, or Linux box at your site. It polls NOWAITN for new jobs and drives one or more local printers via CUPS or raw ESC-POS. Intended to replace PrintNode for customers who want to keep the print pipeline fully on NOWAITN infrastructure. Billing for this tier is planned at $50 per printer endpoint per month. This transport is on the roadmap — the option is visible in the printer setup form marked coming soon.
Browser-native (AirPrint / Android)
Included free with the Printing license. The Printing service renders the job to PDF and the browser's native print dialog drives the physical printer. Good fit when:
- You print occasionally from a laptop or tablet.
- You already have an AirPrint-compatible printer on the same Wi-Fi.
- You don't need headless / lights-out printing.
Trade-off: the operator has to accept the print dialog each time. Not suitable for kitchen-expo use cases where chits must print without human intervention.
Simulator (staging only)
Writes the rendered PDF and HTML to disk instead of sending it to hardware. Used on the staging server to test the full job lifecycle and eyeball different printer-class layouts without a real printer. This transport is blocked in production by configuration — you won't see it as an option on print.nowaitn.com.