The hints and tips here will have potential applicability to any myriad of printing problems under OS X 10.1.
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If you have an unsupported, networked, non-PostScript printer, the instructions and files in this package MAY give you the ability to use it under OS X 10.1. The package walks you through some background on the Mac OS X printing system, the Darwin printing system, and installing GhostScript to get your non-PostScript printers working on your network. With a little bit of your own investigating, this package will potentially allow you to support your SERIAL printers, and possibly unsupported USB printers!
The hints and tips here will have potential applicability to any myriad of printing problems under OS X 10.1.
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Hint Options
wow...
This is the best hint I've ever seen.
Hope this helps my HP LaserJet 5si
I just knew there had to be some information out there like this. Glad to see it posted.
HP PostScript SIMM is another option
Another alternative might be to get the PostScript SIMM for the HP LJ 5Si. The printer is capable of PostScript with that option.
epson hack is back
the epson hack is back, i may be wayout with this, as i hacked before i tried- but i just downloaded the stylus 1280 driver release, hacked all the files within the package, changing 1280 to 1290, restarted and there it was, my1290 in the printer centre.
Epson 1290 OS X drivers available from UK
Go to EPSON's UK download library -
Epson 1290 OS X drivers available from UK
thank you Zingano. I dl-ed the 1280 driver via VersionTracker and read that someone had changed all 1280 instances to 1290 (plug-in and package contents) - I tried this but would always have Print Center crash on me. Now I have the official 1290 drivers! I'll test them out when I get home.
epson hack is back
I have an Epson 850Ne and would like to employ the hack listed here: http://www.xdck.com/ss2500.html , but I can't even see the Epson drivers for the 900N (closest match I'd guess) in the Epson folder (library/printers/Epson/). I installed the additional printer drivers from the 10.1 update CD, but nothing changed even after a restart. I also can't find anything on the web to download (additional drivers, whatnot). Any ideas?
What Options?
i dont know about ghostscript, i've seen a lot of people recommending it, i hacked the driver (see above) but i've yet to figure out if i can specify resolution and colorsync, i dont seem to have that control although i saw relative files when hacking.
What Options?
The printing tutorial I've posted gets "basic" printing to work, but, I think with a little bit of Google research and man page reading, you'll be able to figure out quite a few options. I don't know how well you'll be able to integrate them with the Mac OS, though. I imagine you could define several "virtual printers" with different print filters using the GhostScript options you want. If you're particularly good at scripting, I imagine you could write a "magic filter" that encompasses all of your options.
External hard drive
I really really really want to be able to do this with my USB hard drive. When I started up X for the first time my 30 gig hard drive wasn't on the desk top and after a lot of searching, someone told me that Apple only supports firewire. The official website says it supports both but since my hard disk is not working I have to assume the former. Can anyone please please help me? either to figure out how to hack or if you have a USB drive tell me how you made it work
Using this hack with DJ 870 over at
I'm trying to get this to work with a DeskJet 870cxi via appletalk (I don't have the print server -- under OS9, I simply selected the printer over appletalk using the Chooser).
Using this hack with DJ 870 over at
Hi Bullcreek!
Using this hack with DJ 870 over at
Yay! I finally got this to work!
Thanks very much for your help. As it turns out, the second suggestion you offered, with the appletalk address appended and with quotes, worked.
One problem with the config you had and the DJ870cxi. When specified for 600dpi output, things printed about twice normal size. When I changed the output resolution to 300dpi, things looked normal.
Suggestion to all: Be sure to check the page setup before attempting to print. Unless the correct printer is selected and the output options are correct, you can get weird results. First thing I printed came out at like 14,000 x enlargement.
I'm also getting some kind of weird blue background when printing from Entourage, but this doesn't seem to happen with anything else.
Here's what my lpd.filter file looks like:
#!/bin/sh GS=/sw/bin/gs GS_FONTPATH=/sw/share/ghostscript/fonts:/sw/share/ghostscript/7.02/lib export GS GS_FONTPATH exec $GS -dNOPAUSE -q -dBATCH -sDEVICE=cdj550 -r300 -sOutputFile=|"/usr/bin/atprint deskjet870C:DeskWriter" -Thanks again!
HP Appletalk printers and CUPS
I posted a procedure at http://www.allosx.com/1030154694/1030475524/1037116669/index_html
No luck w/ OfficeJet G85xi
I could get the Sample.PCL file to print but I've had no luck with Print Center & the full GS hack with this HP OfficeJet G85xi. I've tried both IP and appletalk atprint methods without success (incidentally appletalk lists this printer with the space in the name; I've had success printing the PCL file with atprint by surrounding the full name with single quotes, as in 'OfficeJet G85xi:DeskWriter').
No luck w/ OfficeJet G85xi
How about going into Classic, picking the Chooser, hitting Options, and renaming the printer to something that doesn't have spaces? Then substitute the new name in the filters file and in NetInfo. Just a thought.
No luck w/ OfficeJet G85xi
I'm pretty sure that renaming the printer with the Chooser only changes the name of the printer for the computer, that is, the name you see in the chooser. The "real" name of the printer is in the printer or print server.
No luck w/ OfficeJet G85xi
You shouldn't be able to rename the printer in the Chooser. To do that, you'll need the specific utility for the printer, or perhaps a more generic one like the Apple LaserWriter Utility or the HP JetAdmin program.
Balthisar, almost there....
Great tip and instructions. I am using 10.1.1 and trying to print to a HP DJ 1120c with LPR. the instructions went just as you stated. (other than the fact that fink was not in the package ut I just went and got it from the website.) I went through all the steps and things work until it gets to the very end.
Balthisar, almost there....
Sometimes, I've been told by some users, that you have to change the ownership of the lpd.filter file. I didn't specify to set ownership of these files in the instructions, because I didn't have to. Apparently, this isn't working for you.
Balthisar, almost there....
I also had trouble with network printing, but I eventually found the problem. Below is my reply to Jim Derry, author of the original document
Balthisar, almost there....
Thanks Rick and Jim. the permissions etc were not the problem. I went on the errant character hunt and fixed it by opening the file in bbedit and saving with unix line breaks. They showed up as DOS line breaks in BBedit. The HP DJ 1120c is now working. In the mean time I got it working on my HP DJ 850c over Airport and Localtalk bridge. Now that is what I call compatibility with old stuff. Thanks again. Now what I need to learn is how to share the queue first as a LPR printer and then over appletalk. has anyone ported the print server in ashare over to Mac OS X.
Why use AppleTalk, and not LPR?
Why use AppleTalk?
Why use AppleTalk, and not LPR?
Tell me how to do it with no purchases and I am game. Here is the setup:
Networked postscript printers
If you have a networked postscript printer then you only need the "old" LPRIOM.plugin that you can find in Baltishar's package.
Networked postscript printers
I don't understand. If you have a networked PostScript printer that supports AppleTalk or LPR, you should be able to get that to work via the Print Center normally. No need to fiddle with GhostScript and/or NetInfo. So I don't understand what you're meaning by this message -- and this is not a flame, just confusion.
Networked postscript printers
You're right -- to get an AppleTalk or LPR PostScript printer to work was no problem, UNLESS there was a REASON to use a NetInfo printer (such as the desire to use filters for cover pages or other types of accounting). However, the LPRIOM.plugin file BREAKS the use of filters, so it's necessary to use the old one. Even the 10.1.2 LPRIOM.filter is broken.
Unsupported Page Sizes
I've recently upgraded my copy of VectorWorks to 9.5 in order to be able to use it on OS X but found no way to print to my HP250C plotter without changing over to OS 9. The MacPlot Ultra Graphic Pack that I had been using doesn't have a version that works with OS X native.
THANKS!!!
I never thought I will be able to use my old HP laserjet4L printer
combining hints
Could any of you savvy unix people combine this hint with this hint and provide a way of sharing a nonpostscript printer over lpr by using Ghostscript. this would be great in an education setting where we will have several pre OSX macs around for quite a while yet. The Laserwriter driver with the Desktop printer utility would allow a desktop printer to print to such a printer you would just have to tweak a PPD so it would have the right options in it.
Any takers?
combining hints
Okay... check the website around Friday or so:
Works for Epson SC3000; now how about HP DesignJet 488ca?
This is absolutely the best tip. I now have native printing to my networked Epson StylusColor 3000, using the gimp-print ("stp") driver and a .ppd file generated from the linuxprinting.org site (slightly modified to add US-C paper size and to fix page margins). All the printer options (i.e., gamma, ink density, resolution, etc.) show up in the print dialog box and function perfectly. I also discovered that with stp you don't need to specify resolution or print quality in the gs command line, as long as you use the .ppd file generator. The "execution details" option on the linuxprinting.org site was very helpful in knowing how to configure the $GS line in the lpd.filter file. My original mistake was using the Epson StylusRip .ppd file.
remote printer names
some quick comments for y'all. first this is an awesome little hack and epitomizes why i bought mac os x ibook in the first place. onto some useful info, for those of you who've got named printers out there the Netinfo Property required is 'rp' (remote printer). just enter the name of the print spool on the print server as that Value & you should be able to access it quite nicely. you can check with an 'lpq -Pspoolname' to see if you're accessing the printer server properly.
restarting lpd
so i ran into balthisar's lpd bug & fiddled around for a while. i'm reasonably sure that simply killing & restarting lpd then doing an 'lpc restart all' brings things back to life. the only odd part (for me anyways) is that lpd is running from /usr/libexec/lpd which is kind of an odd place for a daemon to run from. no matter, all i did was to 'ps ax|grep lpd' then killed the process number (actually tried a HUP but it didn't come back to life), then restarted it '/usr/libexec/lpd' and then 'lpc restart all' and wham, my print job came out of the printer. |
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