Ok, here is my deal. I am brand new to the mac world and I'm having a hell of a time setting up my printer. I'm trying to print off of my new Powerbook over my wireless network. I have a PC desktop running Windows XP and I have a Brother HL-1440 printer hooked up to it. I've done some searching and it doesn't look like there is a driver out there for the HL-1440 that works with a mac. I tryed to install that gimp-print software but it didn't help a whole lot. No matter what I do, whenever I click print, the data light on the printer will flash and then it will go off without printing anything. I bought this printer about a year ago and I'm starting to think that I may have bought the most inconvenient one possible. Can anyone help? Thanks a lot.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Brother HL-1440 with a PC and Powerbook
- Thread starter EVEykel
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Great printer--works fine in OS X. Download the driver from the brother website and you should be good. No need for gimp/cups/etc. It also works with the Airport Extreme base station, although Brother says it doesn't.
It worked fine when I plugged the USB directly in, but my problem comes when trying to print through my network. When I try to specify the printer model, my model isn't there. I've tried to download the driver from brother.com and it doesn't do anything that I can see. Do I need to do something to add the driver to the list after I install it? Like I said, I'm new to this mac thing.
First of all, you have to turn on 'printer sharing' in the 'sharing' option in system preferences on your Powerbook. That way, the Powerbook will 'look' for shared printers - see if this will do the trick. Secondly, if you have an airport extreme base station, you can also plug the HL 1440 (great printer by the way - I have one myself) straight into it. As your printer is connected to your PC, the main issue might be to get printer sharing between a Mac and a PC to work, where the printer is connected to a PC. Any ideas anyone?
Printer sharing is on and I've done everything that you guys have suggested. When I click print on the powerbook, the printer switches on and acts like it is going to print. The data light blinks and everything, and then it just doesn't print. I'm definitely thinking that it is a driver issue, but I can't figure out how to get the right driver associated with it. I've installed the drivers from the website, but I can't get them to show up in the print preferences window. Where are the drivers stored in OS X? Also, are there any other drivers that you know of that will work with this printer? Thanks.
If you search on Apple's support site you'll find some things to try involving gimp print, though I'm still not sure why it's not working in the first place. What OS are you using?
Progress has been made (sorta). It now turns on and then starts feeding paper and adding in the occasional junk at the top that makes no sense. At least I know that the laptop and my PC are communicating in some sense. Not sure what sense, but some sense.