Products / Make & Print
Hoq Print
Print to a name, from any app or computer, to the first ready printer.
What it does
Hoq Print sends jobs to printers you name by purpose, such as Bag labels or Office letter. A destination lists printers in order; a job goes to the first one that is ready and has the right paper, and to the next when it is not. Each job is held for one printer at a time, so it never prints twice.
Printers on your network are reached through a small agent on a computer that can see them. The agent reads its CUPS queues, so you add a printer by picking it. It reports trays, paper and supplies read from the printer itself. Star CloudPRNT printers need no computer: they fetch their own work over the internet.
On a Linux desktop, Hoq Print for your computer adds one printer per destination to the ordinary Print dialog, with no driver to install. The console shows every printer's state, a proof of each job as it will print, and the one fix a printer needs. A paired wall screen shows the same, readable across the room.
In numbers
1 to 100copies on a reprint
85.6 × 54 mmCR80 card jobs on a card printer, PVC or paper stock
6 ipstop label printer speed shown in plain words
6 digitscode to pair a wall display
Specifications
| How printers are reached | A LAN agent that prints through CUPS, save-to-folder or a custom command, or Star CloudPRNT direct from the printer. |
|---|---|
| Print dialog on your computer | A local IPP Everywhere printer per destination on 127.0.0.1. Linux builds today (.deb, Arch package, tarball). |
| Files it takes | PDFs, pictures and ZPL. PDFs and pictures convert to ZPL for Zebra printers. |
| Paper fitting | A page that is the wrong size is scaled and turned on the server to fit the paper, sent as is, or refused, per destination. |
| Where jobs are kept | One file per space in the owner's Hoq Storage drive. Finished jobs keep their file for reprint from 1 day to a year, and history from 30 days to 2 years. |
| Printer status | Trays, paper and supplies read over IPP from each printer; office printers' CUPS states (paper empty, jam, door open, toner low) shown in the same words. |
| Send once | Apps send their own job key, so a retry never prints the same job twice. |
| Keys for other apps | A send-only key lists destinations, sends jobs and follows only its own jobs. |
| Office computers | Hoq Station packages the print agent and its CUPS setup for Linux as .deb and Arch packages. |
Features
63 features, all in beta. Listed from the product's feature ledger; each row shows the day it was last checked.
| Connect a computer | Links a computer that can reach your printers to your account with one key and a small agent, after which it checks in by itself. | Checked 2026-10-11 |
| Printers found for you | Lists every print queue the computer has, so you add a printer by picking it rather than typing its address. | Checked 2026-10-11 |
| One computer, all your spaces | Lets a computer print for your own space and every organisation you run, or only the ones you choose. | Checked 2026-10-10 |
| Places | Groups computers by where they are, such as an office or a shop. | Checked 2026-10-11 |
| Paper and toner on each printer | Shows each tray with the paper in it, which trays are empty, and supplies running low, read from the printer itself. | Checked 2026-10-11 |
| Printer settings | Shows the settings each printer's driver offers, such as darkness, speed and paper source, and applies your choices to every job. | Checked 2026-10-11 |
| Floor console | One place for daily printing: live printers in a side rail, a Needs-you list that only appears when something needs a person (each with its fix), one job list grouped by what happens next, a side panel for any job or printer, ⌘K commands, keyboard shortcuts, bulk actions and Undo. | Checked 2026-10-13 |
| Check before printing | Drop files anywhere: each shows a proof (as the printer will print it), the fit, where it goes and why it won't print with a one-click fix, then prints in one go. | Checked 2026-10-13 |
| Setup | Computers, printers, where jobs go, screens, keeping files and connect instructions in one quiet place, out of daily view. | Checked 2026-10-13 |
| Stations | A paired touchscreen shows a touch bar (bottom, top or side) to switch between this wall and other apps or local panels, each kept running behind it, with badges for what needs a person and a return to the first tab after a quiet spell. | Checked 2026-10-13 |
| Tab menu | Long-press a station tab to send it back to its start page, show it side by side or swap sides, stay on it for 30 minutes, quiet it for 15 minutes, or close it until the screen next resets; tapping the tab already showing also sends it back to its start page. | Checked 2026-10-13 |
| Apps that say they are busy | An app in a station tab can say it is mid-task, and the station then neither leaves it nor lets another tab jump in front; apps hear when their tab comes into view or leaves it. | Checked 2026-10-13 |
| Station keeps itself current | A station reloads by itself after an update once nobody has touched it for a minute, and every night around 3 am; the console can reload it or show one of its tabs now. | Checked 2026-10-13 |
| Rearrange tabs at the screen | With an owner PIN set in the console, someone at the station can long-press a tab and move tabs left or right; five wrong PINs lock it for ten minutes. | Checked 2026-10-14 |
14 more in Computers and printers
| Times of day | A station can start on other tabs, alone or side by side, during set hours by its own clock, including hours that run past midnight. | Checked 2026-10-14 |
| Tabs that need a look | A Hoq app tab that does not load is marked Not loading and tried again every minute; the bar says Offline when the station loses its connection. | Checked 2026-10-14 |
| Pair tabs from the console | A tab showing a pairing code puts a Pair link on the screen in the console, which opens that app with the code filled in. | Checked 2026-10-14 |
| Looks | Each screen has a look (Paper, Slate, Harbor, Moss or Signal), each in light and dark, used by its wall and its station bar; the signed-in floor can switch looks with a button. | Checked 2026-10-14 |
| Big screen | Every printer as a column readable across the room, state, live proof, next jobs and the one fix it needs, on a wall display, tablet or phone, signed in at /app/print/floor or paired at /wall. | Checked 2026-10-13 |
| What it is | Says what each printer is (thermal or color label, receipt, laser, inkjet, card, sticker, DTG, DTF, UV, wide-format, dye-sub) and what is loaded, such as 4×6 in gap labels, an 80 mm receipt roll or a 16×20 in platen, plus its model, print head width, top speed, how labels leave it and its inks; jobs only go to a printer they fit, and its test page comes out at that size. | Checked 2026-10-12 |
| Processing | Says what each printer understands, its computer's driver, ZPL, or raw, and converts PDFs and pictures to ZPL for Zebra printers (sharp or dithered black and white, darkness, speed); a printer that cannot take a file says why instead of pretending it printed. | Checked 2026-10-12 |
| Refresh status | ↻ Status on a printer asks its computer to look at it now, state, paper, supplies and what it is, and says what it found. | Checked 2026-10-12 |
| Retention | Each space chooses how long finished jobs keep their file for reprint (1 day to a year) and how long their history stays (30 days to 2 years); every finished job says until when it can be printed again, or that its file was removed. | Checked 2026-10-12 |
| Queue | Every printer's line in the order it will print, printing now with progress, then what is next, numbered, with Print next, Pause and Resume, Cancel and Print again on each job; jobs whose destination has no printer that can take them are shown apart with the reason; drop files on a printer to add them. | Checked 2026-10-12 |
| Print queue | Drop PDFs, pictures or ZPL files on a printer or destination (or open Print queue) and they wait in a queue: each is checked against where it goes (fit, or why it won't print there), previewed exactly as the printer will print it when Hoq Print converts for it, given copies and a title, then printed, and the queue then follows every job to printed or the reason it did not, with Print again. | Checked 2026-10-12 |
| Alignment | Sets where the image lands across a roll printer's paper and how far the paper is pulled back before each label. | Checked 2026-10-12 |
| Label printers made simple | Shows a ZyWell label printer's darkness and speed in plain words (speed in inches per second, up to 6) and folds the rest of its driver settings away. | Checked 2026-10-11 |
| Test print | Prints a page the size of the printer's paper with a border 2 mm in, so you can see at a glance whether size and alignment are right. | Checked 2026-10-11 |
| Print to a name | Lets apps print to a destination such as "Bag labels" and never to a particular printer. | Checked 2026-10-10 |
| First ready printer | Sends a destination's job to the first printer on its list that is ready, and to the next when one is not. | Checked 2026-10-10 |
| The right paper | Passes over a printer whose tray for the destination's paper is empty or that does not have it, and says which tray to fill. | Checked 2026-10-11 |
| Darkness and speed per destination | Lets one destination print darker or slower than another on the same label printer. | Checked 2026-10-11 |
| Whichever printer is free | Lets a destination share its work across its printers, so whichever ready printer asks first takes the next job, instead of the rest standing behind the first. | Checked 2026-10-27 |
| Never printed twice | Holds each job for one printer at a time and never reprints a job a printer may already have printed. | Checked 2026-10-08 |
| Retries and expiry | Tries a failed job again a set number of times and gives up on jobs nobody printed in time. | Checked 2026-10-08 |
| Print queue | Lets you drop several PDFs or pictures, see each one's pages, check how it fits the destination's paper (size, shape, resolution), set copies and titles, then print them all; files wait a day until printed. | Checked 2026-10-11 |
| Card printer | Prints card-size jobs (CR80, 85.6 × 54 mm) on the card printer, which lays them two to a tray sheet itself. | Checked 2026-10-11 |
| Card stock | Lets a destination, or one print from the queue, choose the stock a card printer prints on (PVC or paper), each with its own colour profile; the printer holds the job until that stock is loaded. | Checked 2026-10-11 |
| Envelope printers | Prints to printers that need their own print command, with the tray and paper choices a job may ask for. | Checked 2026-10-10 |
| Pages fitted to the paper | A file whose pages are a different size from the paper is fitted to it on the server (scaled, turned when that fits better), so it comes out right even on a printer that takes files raw; each destination can instead send such pages as they are or refuse the file, and the job says what was done. | Checked 2026-10-13 |
| Accept anything | A destination can take whatever is sent: print dialogs offer every common size and every choice, and what its printers cannot do is fitted or left out instead of refused. | Checked 2026-10-13 |
| Every page | A job's preview pages through the whole document, arrows or ← → in the console, arrows or a swipe on the big screen and walls, each page drawn the first time someone looks, with "Page 3 of 12". | Checked 2026-10-13 |
2 more in Printing
| Park destinations | A destination that prints nothing: every file sent to it (any kind, any size) waits under Parked until someone looks at it, renames it, puts several together into one job, and sends it on to a destination or a printer, made ready for that paper on the way, or downloads it. | Checked 2026-10-13 |
| Standard page names | Every page size reaches CUPS by its standard name (or width × height in mm), never `Custom.`, which on a driver with no custom sizes silently printed on the queue's default paper. | Checked 2026-10-13 |
| Every job in one list | Shows jobs from all your spaces together, each with where it printed and what happened. | Checked 2026-10-10 |
| Job history | Records every step of a job, from queued to printed or failed, with the reason. | Checked 2026-10-10 |
| Reprint and cancel | Reprints a finished job as a new one, with however many copies you ask for (1 to 100), or cancels one still waiting. | Checked 2026-10-12 |
| Kept in your own storage | Keeps each space's jobs in a file in its owner's Hoq Storage, deleted after 30 days. | Checked 2026-10-10 |
| Live printer state | Shows what each printer is doing now, ready, printing with how far along, needs you, problem, offline, paused, with what is loaded and supply levels, in the same words for every kind of printer. | Checked 2026-10-12 |
| Needs attention | Lists every printer problem in words with what to do, worst first, and a one-tap fix when the printer offers one (It's loaded, Resume). | Checked 2026-10-12 |
| Printer commands | Sends a printer the commands its computer offers, It's loaded, pause, resume, stop this job, print, from the console or a wall screen. | Checked 2026-10-12 |
| Out of paper from CUPS | Turns what an office printer's CUPS queue says (paper empty, jam, door open, toner low) into the same problems, with nothing new to install. | Checked 2026-10-12 |
| Job pictures | Shows a picture of each job's first page in the job list, the job's details and on the wall. | Checked 2026-10-12 |
| Move a job | Sends a waiting job to another printer that prints for its space. | Checked 2026-10-12 |
| Screens | Saves a choice of printers from any place, in order, as a screen for a wall display. | Checked 2026-10-12 |
| Pair a display | Pairs a display to a screen with the six-digit code it shows at print.hoq.app/wall; forgetting it stops the display at once. | Checked 2026-10-12 |
| The wall | Shows the screen's printers full-screen and touch-first, with the needs-attention bar, and does everything the console does by picture: cancel, reprint, move, test page and the printers' own commands. | Checked 2026-10-12 |
| Print API | Accepts a PDF from any app with a Hoq key, for a destination or a printer, and returns the job to follow. | Checked 2026-10-11 |
| Send it once | Takes a job's own key so an app that retries never prints the same thing twice. | Checked 2026-10-08 |
| Star cloud printers | Lets a Star CloudPRNT printer fetch its own work over the internet, with no computer beside it. | Checked 2026-07-25 |
| Keys that only send | Gives another Hoq app a key that lists destinations, sends jobs and follows or cancels only the jobs it sent; it cannot add printers, change destinations or see anyone else's jobs. | Checked 2026-10-27 |
| Doorbells for apps | Rings the app that sent a job, with a signed empty call, when the job is printed, fails, expires or is cancelled, so it asks for the news instead of polling; only Hoq app addresses can be rung. | Checked 2026-10-27 |
| No ticket needed with a file | Takes a job that brings its own file without the old ticket field. | Checked 2026-10-27 |
Works with
Your data
| Where it is kept | Jobs, history and destinations: one file per space in the owner's Hoq Storage drive. Computers and printers are listed in the Hoq Print service. |
|---|---|
| Getting it out | Not documented. |
| If you leave | Finished jobs are deleted on the retention you set (default 30 days). |
APIs and standards
- REST API: /v1 with a Bearer key (jobs, destinations, hosts)
- Star CloudPRNT endpoint
- IPP Everywhere printer on the desktop (Linux)
- Signed doorbell call to the sending app when a job finishes
- Standard: IPP Everywhere
- Standard: Star CloudPRNT
- Standard: CUPS
- Standard: ZPL
- Standard: PDF
Compared
| Checked 2026-11-01 | Hoq Print | PrintNode | StarIO.Online (Star Micronics) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price | Not published | Free for 50 prints a month; $9, $29 or $99 a month1 | 90-day free trial, then subscription (prices not published)2 |
| Printers supported | Any CUPS queue, plus Star CloudPRNT printers | Printers attached to a computer running the client1 | Star CloudPRNT devices only3 |
| Computer agent runs on | Linux | Windows, macOS, Linux, Raspberry Pi1 | No computer; the printer connects itself3 |
| Print to a purpose with failover | Destinations try printers in order | not published1 | not published3 |
| Status and job events | Live printer state, supplies, and a signed call to the app | not published1 | Webhooks for device status, print results and new devices3 |
| Self-hosted option | No | Standalone Server, contact sales1 | not published3 |
| Shows up in the OS Print dialog | Yes on Linux, one printer per destination | not published1 | Print by email once activated3 |