Printing Probs

[Mark]

Have got a Mac running 0sx 10.* and a pc running windows
2000 sp4. I am trying to print from the Mac to a HP
DJ950c connected to the PC via USB. The mac can see the
printer and I have installed it as a network printer but
when I come to print I get a communication error. Help
please

 

[William Smith]

Have got a Mac running 0sx 10.* and a pc running windows
2000 sp4. I am trying to print from the Mac to a HP
DJ950c connected to the PC via USB. The mac can see the
printer and I have installed it as a network printer but
when I come to print I get a communication error. Help
please

Hi Mark!

I won't claim that this is a definitive answer for you but I will point
out why this may not work directly and some options I see for you.

First, your Mac is sending Postscript information when it is printing
but your Deskjet is not a printer capable of receiving Postscript. Even
if you were to get your data sent to the printer it would probably be
gibberish.

A simple option for you is to print anything on the Mac to a PDF and
then transfer this to the Windows PC, open it in Adobe Reader and print
from the PC.

If you're feeling adventurous, you can install some open source software
on your Windows machine that will intercept your Postscript information,
convert it to a form that the printer can use and then print it. It's a
little hairy to set up but I've done it and it works well. Have a look
at these excellent instructions on Sourceforge.net
<http://iharder.sourceforge.net/macosx/winmacprinter/>.

Hope this helps! bill

 

[mark]

-----Original Message-----



Hi Mark!

I won't claim that this is a definitive answer for you but I will point
out why this may not work directly and some options I see for you.

First, your Mac is sending Postscript information when it is printing
but your Deskjet is not a printer capable of receiving Postscript. Even
if you were to get your data sent to the printer it would probably be
gibberish.

A simple option for you is to print anything on the Mac to a PDF and
then transfer this to the Windows PC, open it in Adobe Reader and print
from the PC.

If you're feeling adventurous, you can install some open source software
on your Windows machine that will intercept your Postscript information,
convert it to a form that the printer can use and then print it. It's a
little hairy to set up but I've done it and it works well. Have a look
at these excellent instructions on Sourceforge.net
<http://iharder.sourceforge.net/macosx/winmacprinter/>.

Hope this helps! bill
--
William M. Smith
(Microsoft Interop MVP)
.
Cheers bill

Have just look at the instructions and you are right, a
bit hairy but not too bad. Will try tonight and let you
know what happens.

Many thanks

Mark

 

[Chris Inacio]

but I will point


for you.


is printing


Postscript. Even


probably be


to a PDF and


Reader and print


source software


Postscript information,


print it. It's a


well. Have a look



Have just look at the instructions and you are right, a
bit hairy but not too bad. Will try tonight and let you
know what happens.

Many thanks

Mark

If you have Panther, can't you just use CUPS that's built in? I think
it would save you A LOT of effort. Ghostscript/Redmon does work pretty
well, I've used it on FreeBSD/Linux, etc for years successfully. But,
wouldn't it be easier to use what's already in place.

http://www.cups.org

I use it to talk to my hp deskjet 5650 printer attached to my XP Home
machine, and it works fine, albeit slightly slower than printing
directly from my XP box.

Chris

 

[Mark]

-----Original Message-----


If you have Panther, can't you just use CUPS that's built in? I think
it would save you A LOT of effort. Ghostscript/Redmon does work pretty
well, I've used it on FreeBSD/Linux, etc for years successfully. But,
wouldn't it be easier to use what's already in place.

http://www.cups.org

I use it to talk to my hp deskjet 5650 printer attached to my XP Home
machine, and it works fine, albeit slightly slower than printing
directly from my XP box.

Chris
.
Bill, can't get ghostcript/redmon to work. log file says

that it cannot open widows GID printer driver any
suggestions - hate to be beaten

Chris, am definiatly running OSX 10.? how do I access
CUPS, is it just a case of setting up the printer on an IP
address or what. (Haven't had chance to look at the MAC
yet as my wife is using it for her teaching notes - but
will later)

Cheers both

Mark

 

[William Smith]

If you have Panther, can't you just use CUPS that's built in? I think
it would save you A LOT of effort. Ghostscript/Redmon does work pretty
well, I've used it on FreeBSD/Linux, etc for years successfully. But,
wouldn't it be easier to use what's already in place.

http://www.cups.org

I use it to talk to my hp deskjet 5650 printer attached to my XP Home
machine, and it works fine, albeit slightly slower than printing
directly from my XP box.

Hi Chris!

Using what's in place would definitely be better but I have no idea how
to configure a virtual print queue that points to Ghostscript and then
sends the output to the printer.

I've found this set of instructions in an Apple discussion group. Does
this look like what you'd suggest? (I don't currently have a printer at
my disposal to test.)

<http://discussions.info.apple.com/[email protected]@.3bbc7528>

Any detailed instructions (or at least a good point in the right
direction) would be appreciated. What do you have to do in the
FreeBSD/Linux world?

bill

 

[Chris Inacio]

Hi Chris!

Using what's in place would definitely be better but I have no idea how
to configure a virtual print queue that points to Ghostscript and then
sends the output to the printer.

I've found this set of instructions in an Apple discussion group. Does
this look like what you'd suggest? (I don't currently have a printer at
my disposal to test.)

<http://discussions.info.apple.com/[email protected]@.3bbc7528>

Any detailed instructions (or at least a good point in the right
direction) would be appreciated. What do you have to do in the
FreeBSD/Linux world?

bill

I think it should be easier than that, (really I used the book
"Switching to the Mac",) but lets see what I can remember....

I'm not at home right now, but first I would try doing:

http://localhost:639

which should get you to the administration webpage on cups, if its
running, (I think you have to start it first though....). Mac OS X uses
Cups (www.cups.org) and gimp-print (gimp-print.sourceforge.net) for
drivers. The gimp-print page has advice on how to setup a printer in OS
10.2.

In the FreeBSD/Unix world you would set up a printer definition in the
lpd.conf file, and it would get a spool queue, but you would redirect
the type to execute a local shell script, instead of sending to a remote
queue or using direct "line printing". The shell script then usually
redispatches everything to something like Ghostscript or some other
print processor turning usually Postscript into something like PCL or
GDI. Then sends it back out to a real printer queue, either remote or
local. The Ghostscript documentation actually has complete
documentation on how to do all this, including the shell scripts you
need to make it work. But Cups was built to avoid this, handle more
streams than just Postscript, and generally make a life a lot easier.

It appears, from my reading, that Cups should already be running, so
connecting your web browser to it should allow you to do the
configuration, its relatively simple from there, as I recall.

Here's a reasonable page on some lower level details about Cups, but it
does include how to restart it....

http://www.macintouch.com/panreader41.html

I'll try to remember to read this thread from home tonight so I can be
in front of everything while I'm spouting off....

good luck
Chris

 

[Chris Inacio]

This is from the Mac OS X gimp-print FAQ:

# Windows printer via SAMBA
If you want to print to a shared printer connected to a Windows XP
computer try these instructions (this procedure has not been thoroughly
tested):

1. Open the Print Center utility (located in /Applications/Utilities/).
2. Hold down the option key on your keyboard and either click on the
Add button in the Print Center toolbar or select Add printer... from the
Printers menu. A new sheet will open.
3. In the sheet click on the top popup menu and select Advanced from
the very bottom of the list.
4. Next, click on the Device: popup menu and select Windows Printer
via SAMBA.
5. In the Device Name: field enter a descriptive name for this printer.
6. In the Device URI: field enter the device URI in the following form:

smb://winuserassword@workgroup/server/printer

winuser
XP login name
password
XP login password
workgroup
XP workgroup name
server
Computer name of the XP machine
printer
Share name of the shared XP printer

7. Finally, click on the Printer Model popup menu and select the
manufacturer for your printer, and in the small window at the bottom of
the sheet select the PPD file for your printer model. It's important
that you select the correct PPD file, and the names are not overly
descriptive, but if you match your printer model number with the number
in the PPD file name you should be OK.
8. Click Add.
9. Print a test page.


http://gimp-print.sourceforge.net/p_FAQ_OS_X.php3


this is not what I did, but it looks good!

Chris

 

[Chris Inacio]

So I checked the book, and basically the whole tip was, paraphrased:

For the technically inclined you can go to http://localhost:631, and
configure your printer there.

As I mentioned, I've have good success printing to my 5650 connected via
SMB to my XP Home machine. I'm using the HP Deskjet new generation
driver without too much complaint, but I'm not a particularly heavy
print user.

Hope this helps, and curious if it does.

Chris

 

[mark]

Just to say thanks to both of you. Chris the instructions
below worked. I can now print over the network. I just
had to change one small thing and that that was the smb
instruction. I used the built in guest account on WIN2K
and left the password out ie:-

smb://guest............

I think I will post these instructions as a stand alone
message if you have no objections as there are probably
others out there with the same problem. I will check back
on here tomorrow.

Once again many thanks for all the advice

Mark.

-----Original Message-----
So I checked the book, and basically the whole tip was, paraphrased:

For the technically inclined you can go to

http://localhost:631, and