Laserjet 2100 on Jetdirect device

[jlewis30]

I am trying to set up a Leserjet 2100 in my son's 1st grade classroom. Previously there was a HP color ink jet printer connected to a Jetdirect 300X device. SOOOOO, we just connected the Laserjet to the same device and added the printer. When we try to print we get what looks like PCL gibberish (15 pages mostly blank with some Adobe !PS code sprinkled throughout). I have deleted the com.apple.print files, I have deleted all printers and added fresh, I have dowloaded and installed the drivers from HP. I am not a mac user, typically, and am stumped. What else can I look at here to get the PC talking to the printer.

Thanks so much from room B-11, the ink for that color printer is stupid expensive and it will be much more valuable to have a laser work horse.

[gsahli]

Two things: Use IP printing > HP Jetdirect protocol.

Use driver choice HP Laserjet 6 Series, Gimp-Print (already installed in Panther and Tiger). This is a generic PCL driver instead of postscript.

[MisterMe]

The Jetdirect 300 X is an external print server. It allows your computer to talk to the printer. However, you need a printer-specific driver for the printer and computer to understand what each other are saying. Apple supplies an HP LaserJet 2100 PPD file with MacOS X 10.4. You can also download it from HP's website. This printer is also supported by GIMP-print.

BTW: Only if the LJ 2100 does not have an internal print server do you need the Jetdirect 300X. If your printer has an Ethernet port, then you can toss the external server.