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Activate advanced printer selection feature in PrintCenter Apps
I found this by mistake. In the print center, when you press the Option (Alt) key while clicking on the Add Printer button, the first pop-up on the next screen will contain an "Advanced" option. Select Advanced, and you got access to HP JetDirect, SMB and ZeroConf Registered Printers. So no need to add SMB printer through CUPS web interface anymore.

[robg adds: There have been a few hints that included activating this option as part of the process of doing something else, but I couldn't find an actual hint on simply activating Advanced mode ... so here it is!]
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Activate advanced printer selection feature in PrintCenter | 12 comments | Create New Account
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Activate advanced printer selection feature in PrintCenter
Authored by: Kool on Mar 06, '03 11:21:34AM

Great tip! But the the option I was looking for: printing via SMB wasn't listed on my system. Does somebody has any idea why?

I want to print to a HP LaserJet 5P that is connected to a Win2K computer and shared, but I can't make any changes to the Win2k box... is that possible?



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Activate advanced printer selection feature in PrintCenter
Authored by: Thomas Kaiser on Mar 06, '03 11:33:30AM
If you have no "smb" backend in /usr/libexec/cups/backend, then you've
to add one. Just make a symlink to samba's smbspool utility, eg. by

    sudo ln -s /usr/bin/smbspool /usr/libexec/cups/backend/smb

Regards,

Thomas

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Activate advanced printer selection feature in PrintCenter
Authored by: Kool on Mar 06, '03 12:03:34PM

Thank you for the prompt response! After a restart I got the SMB option in the Advanced menu.

Only, now I added the printer: it gives this error when trying to print:

Unable to connect to SAMBA host, will retry in 60 seconds...: undefined error: 0

I'm afraid I have the smb address wrong. I used smb://<computername>/<Windows Shared Printer Name>/

So smb://geo292xx.geo.uu.nl/hp5p/

On a related topic: Does it matter that his printer / Win box is outside my workgroup? Where I can set mine?



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Activate advanced printer selection feature in PrintCenter
Authored by: LexAndLois on Mar 06, '03 12:43:49PM

I successfully got printing to work both ways, to a PLW 320 from a Win2K box and to an Alps MD1000 (attached to a Win2K box) from my iMac. Unfortunately, it was mostly a proof of concept and not something I readily use, so I don't remember all the details.

I do seem to recall that I had the same "can't connect" message with every combination of smb://... that I used until I changed the printer Sharing:Security preferences to allow full access to everyone. There could have been other factors involved (my test setup was in the same workgroup).



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Activate advanced printer selection feature in PrintCenter
Authored by: BigMac2 on Mar 06, '03 12:50:36PM

If you have protection on your WinXP box you can use this syntax:
smb://user:password@host/printer



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Activate advanced printer selection feature in PrintCenter
Authored by: neosputnik on Mar 06, '03 01:03:26PM

I tried this to see if I could print to our office's HP DeskJet 932c. The printer is listed as OS X compatible on HP's site. However, no DeskJet models show up in the Advanced mode either. Has anyone gotten this to work?



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Activate advanced printer selection feature in PrintCenter
Authored by: seann on Apr 16, '03 12:50:41PM

Most likely this is because the Hp Deskjet drivers for Mac OSX use AppleTalk for network printing, however to bail you out of this situation, third party drivers such as gimp-print may work.



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Activate advanced printer selection feature in PrintCenter
Authored by: JohnITG on Mar 06, '03 04:42:06PM

Check out Gimp-Print it has bailed me out many times. Get the Gostscript install it first then install gimp-print then go to the advanced printer selection... Your printer should show up at the bottom of the device pop-up.

This works for a lot of printers. Check out the supported printers list.

http://gimp-print.sourceforge.net/MacOSX.php3



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Activate advanced printer selection feature in PrintCenter
Authored by: wilsonm on Mar 06, '03 05:37:35PM

There's already an older thread on this overall topic at http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20021017064855619 . The most complete instructions were posted on 3/3/03 by user "Haz". (But no mention anywhere in the thread of the "Unable to connect to SAMBA host [etc.]" error msg in Print Center.)

I'm on a campus network, trying to print to my buddy's Epson 740 shared on a Win XP box. Although I've followed Haz's instructions I'm still getting the "Unable to connect to SAMBA host [etc.]" error msg in Print Center. But I admit I haven't fully RTFM ["F" = fine] that came with Gimp-Print or GhostScript.

Stuck for the moment.



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Activate advanced printer selection feature in PrintCenter
Authored by: whoopy on Apr 05, '03 11:44:44PM

I'm getting the same error, no matter what printer URI I use... I can set
up the printer sucessfully, but I get that "will retry in 60 seconds" error
message.

I have everything that I need installed: gimp print and ghostscript. I can
pick out the proper driver for my printer (hp laserjet 6l - its the hp
laserjet 6 series driver).

I know that samba works cause I can log onto my win2k machine and
read the c drive (smb://machine name/c$ via 'connect to server'). I
know that the printer works over the network via another win2k machine
as well as locally.

I tried all sorts of drivers and the URI combos, still get that 60 second
error. Here are some of my URI attempts (even tried using an IP
address instead of a server name for all examples):

smb://<server name>/<printer name>
smb://<user id>:<password>@<domain>/<sever name>/<printer
name>
smb://<user id>:<password>@<sever name>/<printer name>
smb://<domain>;<user id>@<server name>/<printer name>

Any help would keep me from throwing the printer out of the window!!
whoopy



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Activate advanced printer selection feature in PrintCenter
Authored by: surfgatinho on Apr 15, '03 06:23:32AM

I have the same problem BUT I had it working fine a couple of weeks
ago. My suspicion is it's something to do with the latest security update



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Activate advanced printer selection feature in PrintCenter
Authored by: Ministry on Mar 05, '05 03:33:54PM

Hi,

I've tried also a lot of device uri's but this one worked for me:
smb://<user id>:<password>@<domain>/<sever name>/<printer
name>

But I this figure out that the uri is case sensitive!!!
So all entries in this uri should be the same as on your win pc.
The server name is all capitals also your network name.



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