# Airport Extreme, Printing from PowerBook & Dell Laptop



## Sogni (Feb 6, 2003)

I'm setting up an Airport Extreme Basestation with Printer attached to the USB Print Server on the Basetation to work with a Powermac (15"), and a Dell Latitude. 

The laptops work fine - but the reception in the house I'm setting it up is HORRIBLE (I think they have 2.4 Ghz phones). We're going to try an external antenna for the basestation.

Anyway, the thing I'm having a problem with is that they have an HP Photosmart printer... which I knew didn't work with OSX before. Altho now the HP website says it will work with 10.2.3, so I'll be installing that soon.

The Airport Admin Utility does recognize and verifies the printer's information.

But, does that mean it will work?
My confusion is because I found this today, and the printer is not listed here:  
http://www.apple.com/airport/printcompatibility.html

Any ideas?

And how do I find the printer from the Mac?
And what about printing to it from the Dell (or another printer)? The Dell is running Windows 2000 Pro...

Thanks in advanced for any help...


----------



## Cheryl (Feb 6, 2003)

I moved this to the correct forum.


----------



## Gnomo (Feb 7, 2003)

I'm gonna take a shot in the dark at this.  Basing together what I know of networking and print servers, this is how I assume it works (how I would have done it, if I made the device).

Okay, since the printer is basically connected to a wireless print server, you will have to use IP Printing to access the printer.

This IP address will be the IP of the Base Station.  If you are using the Access Point as a router, it will have both an internal and external address (ie the one you got from your ISP).  The internal address is the one you want , it will (most likely) be 192.168.0.1  However if you are only using it as a wireless access point on a larger network, it could be almost anything (ie 192.168.2.20 or 10.10.99.44).

So, setting up the PowerMac will be no problem.  Print Center -> IP Printing...but you probably already knew that.

Setting up the Windows box is a "bit" harder.  Start -> Settings -> Printers -> Add new printer.
Tell the wizard the opens that you want to add a "local" printer and not to search for plug-and-pray devices.  When it asks you what port it is connected to, tell it to creat a new port and specify a TCP/IP port.  That will launch another wizard.

Type in the IP address, the wizard will then try to locate the printer.  If windoze can't find the printer, you will need to specify the device type manually.  I don't have the equipment to try it on, but I think that the Apple Network Printer would work. (sorry, I'm a little fuzzy here.)

Once that is complete, it will return to the previous wizard where you can specify the printer type (assuming that it couldn't find the printer).  Specify the Maker and Model, printer name, whether to share the printer (not like you really need to share a network printer, but it asks anyway), and if you want to print a test page and you are done.  (So what was that?  about 20 steps??  Not bad   )

I appologize if the steps aren't exactly accurate.  I have windows XP pro, but it is fairly close to 2000 Pro


----------



## larry98765 (Mar 2, 2003)

I just got Airport Extreme Base Station. Re using it as a print server: Everythings ok as far as printing from my mac to an HP Deskjet attached to the AEBS. But using Gnomo's approach didn't quite work for me for printing from Windows XP. I went through step by step, but my test page never printed. Anyone have any other ideas?


----------



## Dehuti (Jul 4, 2003)

It's fairly easy larry, I did that what Gnomo said adding one more thing; after creating new TCP/IP port I changed protocol of transmission for this port from LPR to RAW. Now it's working very well. 

Gnomo, thank you very much.


----------

