Continuing the theme of Mac related questions, I’m having untold grief getting my macbook to talk to a printer.

So far I’ve tried a

HP1010 LaserJet
Canon IP5200
Epson Stylus D88

None of these printers are in the printer setup utility, and all I’ve managed to do so far is to get the HP printer to print random crap.

In particular I’d like to get it working with the Epson as its my home one. I’m trying to connect to it via a wireless windows workgroup called MSHOME. I can see it when I browse, but it seems the list of models contain every other printer BUT this one.

I’ve tried the epson site, but the driver I installed did nothing. I’ve tried ‘reset printing system’ and rebooting.

Surely its not this difficult to connect to a 2 year old Major brand printer? Am I doing something wrong?

PS I’d better make this my last mac related Q…:)

Configuring a printer can be a pain. I would recommend against using the Windows networking option, unless that is your only option. Is the printer connected to a Windows PC at the moment, or directly to the MacBook, via USB?

You can set up the Canon and the HP by using the Gimp-print LaserJet 5 drivers instead of the printer specific drivers.

keston - 22 June 2007 02:43 AM

You can set up the Canon and the HP by using the Gimp-print LaserJet 5 drivers instead of the printer specific drivers.

Yes, I’ve been very happy with the Gimp drivers myself.

Not having much luck,I can get the printer added but it just gives a samba error. I think it would be fine if the printer was directly connected, its the windows share thats the problem I suspect…

not to worry, I may have to have a rethink. Just been looking at the OS Leopard previews on the Apple site, it looks incredible.

$129 suggested selling price, as opposed to $399 for Vista Ultimate? Hmmm….

Is your computer in the same Windows workgroup as the printer? Go to /Applications/Utilities/Directory Access.app, go into SMB/CIFS, and make sure the Workgroup is set correctly.

Thanks coolfactor, I’ve tried ‘Mshome’ and ‘MSHOME’. The printer adds ok, it just times out with a SAMBA error. The print queue seems to look ok.

Update - now I’m getting this:

screenshot

You might see if this helps: http://hardware.mcse.ms/archive141-2005-9-237754.html

For what it’s worth, it’s a heckuvah lot easier the other way around.  Install Bonjour on your Windows machines and leave the printer hooked up to your Mac or an Airport Base Station.  Never had any problems going that route.

I fought with this a few months ago- wish I could remember exactly how I fixed it.  Have you tried setting it up as an LPD printer instead of a windows printer?
Printer Setup Utility for LPD
If you ping the printer’s name in the terminal it will return it’s IP address. eg.

I’ll see If I can steal a few minutes to figure out how I did it on Monday.

Getting closer, I can print crap now, by using the generic driver. If I use the gutenprint driver for the D88 it just gives me the NT_NO_MEMORY error.

Think its a driver issue?

Thanks for all the help guys, I finally managed to get my printer working, it prints fine using the CUPS driver.

Why is it though you can never remember the exact steps you took to get it working?

Thanks!