Connecting Mac to HP Photosmart Thru Print Server

P

pdhass

Registered
I have a wireless network with 3 PC's connected to an HP LaserJet and an HP Photosmart 7760 through a D-Link print server. Everything works fine except. . . I recently added an iBook G4 with OS X 10.4.2 . I was able to get the iBook to work just fine with the HP Laserjet, however, getting the iBook to communicate successfullly with the HP Photosmart hasn't worked, and I've tried a lot of different ways. I did download the latest driver/installation software from HP for the Photosmart printer, and installed them on the iBook. But still nothing will work. The best I can get so far is that the HP Photosmart will print-out gibberish from the iBook. I've tried all of the options on the iBook printer installation utility, as well as the HP Installer. Help, please!!
Paul
pdhass@Gmail.com
(714) 838-6607
 
Two issues - driver and setup:

Driver - Different from Windows. Except for Brother, no other non-postscript printer manufacturer provides CUPS drivers. CUPS drivers are required to use the OS X built-in network printing protocols, so the manufacturers are limiting you to USB. You need to use the open source CUPS driver set, hpijs and ESP ghostscript:
http://www.linuxprinting.org/macosx/hpijs/

Setup - Windows has autosetup software - OS X doesn't. The big issue is that entering the queue name specific to the print server model is required -in OS X Printer Setup, but all those windows users (and even tech support) don't know about that because of the autosetup software. You'll find the specific queue name in the print server manual - common ones are L1, lp1, lpt1.

Good luck.
 
I did download and install the hpijs-foomatic package, as well as the ESP Ghostscript for Mac OS X. 'Followed all the instructions. I didn't have a color photo ready for printing (on the HP PhotoSmart 7760) so created a document with all sorts of color fonts. To my great joy it printed beautifully in color on the HP PhotoSmart. I declared victory!! Problem solved!
A few hours later my wife attempted printing a color photo from iPhoto using the HP PhotoSmart printer. Back to gibberish - what a let-down that was! In fact, we can't stop the Photosmart from printing a line of gibberish, ejecting the sheet, and sucking in another sheet, repeatedly -- on and on!
I discovered by running the Mac's printer utility that it had lost its settings for the Photosmart. Okay, I'll just re-enter them. Nothing doing! The utility keeps not allowing me to select the correct printer from the list of printers -- I can click on the correct printer, but it does not become selected. I'm giving it everything it needs -- the IP address of the print server, and the queue name for the printer, however, it's not working. Help, please!
 
That sounds like an OS X issue. Try these generic fixes one at a time:

Repair permissions (Disk Utility).
Delete Print Prefs - search for (File>Find) files that start with com.apple.print and delete them all and reboot.
Reset Printing System (new in Tiger) - In Printer Setup, click this menu item found just above Quit Printer Setup.
If there is a downloadable Combination Updater from Apple, use it to re-Update OS X.
Try Printer Setup Repair from www.fixamac.net.
Use a Disk Utility like Disk Warrior to repair the HD.

Good luck.
 
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