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Print from Windows XP to Mac-connected USB printers
Authored by: jimfrost on Jan 14, '06 06:48:21PM

What a nice little tip, it helped me get a Canon i850 USB printer working and now I know a bit more about OSX printing that I didn't before.

The reason the straightforward approach (just giving it the IPP address) doesn't work is because the Windows print system autodetects the printer type and installs the driver automatically. The problem is that OSX exposes the printer as a postscript printer, no matter what it really is. Windows prints using the native printer format and the OSX postscript interpreter barfs on it.

Having given it the address, however, Windows adds it as a local port - a quirk in their implementation. It isn't deleted when you delete the printer, allowing you to select it as a destination. The more correct approach would be to create the port, but either way will work.

When you print using that port the printer isn't autodetected and you can pick any driver you want. So you pick a PostScript printer and you're in business.

Thanks for the tip and I hope this added explanation helps someone out.



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Print from Windows XP to Mac-connected USB printers
Authored by: haleyds on Mar 29, '06 08:09:38AM

I have a laptop with XP Pro, with wireless connection to my Mac G4 dual 450 which is using a USB to Parallel connector on a Epson Photo Stylus EX. I followed the above setup along with other OS X Hints for the CUPs printer and WOW it worked great right off!

I then wanted to change the CUPs printer setting to improve the quality, BIG mistake! Things got so messed up I had to start all over. The problem now is that while the CUPS setup is the same as my original and the PC Laptop sees and connects to the printer all it will print out now is junk and RAW data. Any idea's on what to check? I understand the CUPs has to be set to RAW.



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