printing in the lan

Zammy-Sam

Zammy-Sam

Desertchild
Hi!

I'm trying to get access to my HP Deskjet 970cxi which is connected to the usb-port of my windows server. This one has winxp.

I have my lan working fine with dave, but printing is still not working.

How to do? I don't have a print-server. I know, this way it might work.

Ain't there another way?

tnx!


Sam



Btw: I have an ibook SE 600 with 256MB connected to a 8port switch running at 100MBit.
 
Sorry, but I think you will have to wait for 10.2. I have read somewhere (I won't remember where) that it wasn't possible. Apple have taken a license of a soft that allow this, and will certainly include it in 10.2.

Popey
 
it's a pity...

But maybe someone knows how to configure and adjust a printserver on winxp without using a hardware router or printserver?!?

Btw, when is Mac OSX 10.2 going to be released?



tnx

Sam
 
Well, all I know about lpr is that it's a command on unix which you use for printing jobs.

Maybe you could explain how this one might replace a printserver...

I was trying to find software solutions to pretend a printserver. Infact this ain't a big thing. There must be an ip and finally a simple software transforming those tcp/ip-pakets to some useful instructions for the printer.
By now I didn't find anything like that.

Ain't there any possibility to use Appletalk in this case? And what about Dave? It's working very fine concerning filesharing. But what about sharing a printer?



Sam
 
LPR should work. I haven't tested this in XP, but it works in Win 2000 Pro. XP Pro has the same feature, I suspect that XP Home Edition does not.

First off, you need a Postscript driver for the printer installed on the XP box. OS X can't do PCL, as far as I can tell (this may also explain why DAVE doesn't work for you?).

Now, on the XP Pro box, go to the "Add/remove Programs" control panel. Click "Add/Remove Windows Components". In the Wizard that pops up, click "next". Now select "Other Network File and Print Services". Click "details". Check "Print Services for Unix", then Click OK. It will now install the necessary software, and may ask for your XP CD. That should be all you need to do on the XP box.

Now, go to your OS X box. Open the Print Center. Click "Add Printer". On the first pop-up menu, choose "LPR Printers using IP". Fill in the hostname or IP address of your XP box. Uncheck "Use default queue on Server". For the "Queue name", enter the name of the printer on the XP box. It probably helps if you've given the printer a name with no spaces, but I'm not sure on this. Now, choose your printer model on the last menu. If it's not available, look for drivers on the manufacturers web site, or try "Generic". When you have all the information entered, click "Add", and you should be all set to print.
 
Well, I just did it all, but I had some problems (and still do).

First of all I am not sure, if I have Postscript-drivers installed on my WinXP. Maybe you know, if the HP Deskjet 970cxi supports those. I don't know it. And since I have some problems, this might be a possible reason for it.

I did it all the way you told me, dsnyder. At this place thank you for that great description.
I stucked at the point to chose my printer. But you told me to check on the website. I did so and found a driver for HP Deskjet 970cxi for MacOSX.
Great, I installed and when I restarted, I didn't find that printer in that list from the printcenter.
Well, I don't know how to add it there. I thought since I installed by the installer, everything should be done. Maybe I have to do some more?!

Finally I checked "generic" and did my first print job. The printer started printing, but instead of printing the text, it was printing a line going like this:
%!PS-Adobe-3.0
%%Title: (Microsoft Word - LPR should work.doc)
%%Creator: (
and than the printer started rolling out papers over papers without printing anything.
Looks like there is some software problem.
Any idea what to do?


Thanks again for your help!


Sam
 
Deskjets are not PostScript printers (as you could see from the actual printout, which is PostScript, but printer did nothing with it).

It is a deskjet, though, and there is a possibility of installing Ghostscript to render the PostScript page(s) into whatever it is that is supported by Deskjets (PCL of some sort?). Once you have done that, for extra credit you can create a lpr/lpd queue on OS X to do the automatic rendering prior to sending it to XP.
 
Thanks for your replay, ladavacm!

I have some questions:
since you said that the Deskjet-printers doesn't support Postscript...
Where would I have to install that Ghostscript? MacOSX or WinXP?



Sam
 
Well, everything is working now!
I checked for ghostview (special thanks to ladavacm).
Finally I found this:

http://pnm2ppa.sourceforge.net/PPA_networking/PPA_networking-4.html

There is nothing else to say than: follow this instruction and enjoy your shared printer getting accessed by your MacOSX in a Win-Lan!

Ok, for all of you having a colour printer: instead of the Laserjet II NT, how adviced in the site, use Apples Color Laserjet 12/660 PS.

It's working really fine and allows me to print coloured.
It's strange, but I have the feeling the quality of the printout is much better than printings on WinXP! :D
Guess I am going to do all my printjobs over my ibook! ;)

Again: tnx to ladavacm. Great idea!


Sam
 
I have been messing with the very same issues that are addressed in this post, and from the look of doing a search on printing, many others are as well. I have been trying to print from my TI Book to a non postscript printer attached to a Win XP/NT 2k box on my home network.

Perhaps the person who figured this all out could come up with a step by step procedure and put it into the HOW TO section of this site. I am going to run home this evening and give this a whirl... Thanks for the infomation.

BSDimwit
 
I've tried what Zammy-Sam suggested, and was initally able to print from OsX.

However, 2 days later (today) I am once again unable to print!!!
I tried printing from TextEdit, but print centre opens and it just says "Connecting to printer" ... and doesn't print at all =|

Any idea what might be causing the problem?
I'm sorry I can't give more details.
 
I have a Mac (OS X) and PC (Win 98) on a home network via a Linksys router. Is it possible to print from OS X, to the printer connected to the PC (via a serial port), or is this another 10.2 features that I need to wait patiently for?

Thanks...
 
It's been a while, but I think everything referred to in the thread is based on using LPR to share the printer. As far as I know, Win98 cannot share printers via LPR, so I think you are out of luck. Jaguar may include the ability to print using SAMBA (this is the printer sharing method that Win98 uses). I don't have access to any betas though so I can't say for sure.

You may be able to do some command-line trickery by installing the full Samba package on your mac (see http://www.samba.org ), but I don't know how this would work specifically.
 
Hmmm, when I was at work I was able to print to the printers there simply by adding the IP address of the printer to my list of LPR printers. Is that not the case here?
 
This is just a short sketch of a solution; for more details, please take a look at FreeBSD Handbook (online), part about printing to the non-PostScript printer using GhostScript renderer.

You will need to use input (and possibly output) filter for lpd (goes into equivalent of /etc/printcap of OS X). The filters have to accept PostScript, render it into whatever bitmap format is supported by the printer, and use smbclient to actually send it to Windows shared printer.

I used to do that some years ago (using FreeBSD to connect to windows); setting this up was more tedious than complicated, and solution I managed is long gone by now (thanks to JetDirect card on a real PostScript printer).
 
did you try the links up there, ghyde?

your constellation is almost like mine over here.
You need to make sure, that you can ping the windows pc with the printer plugged in and finally make sure your printer is available in the lan.
(and watch out the printer-name for the lan! On those links you can read why)

I had MacOSX 10.1.3 I think (or even older) and Win2000. I don't use a router system, but this is quite unimportant.

I had dave installed as well. Dunno, but maybe this is a reason for you not being able to print. I remember I first made sure, that I have file-access to the windows-system.
But don't worry! It will work! We'll make it somehow! (eventhought it's no more working here, since I installed WinXP and didn't have the time to follow the tutorial for the printing.. ;) )

Btw, do you have Win98 or Win98SE? There are several new network-stuff that are in Win98SE...
 
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