[SOLVED] Printing to a Shared Mac Printer

[atomicrabbit]

ok I'm trying to set up a shared printer on windows. The printer is physically hooked up to an iMac G5 via USB and I'm trying to set the printer up on my xp machine. I followed these instructions, and aside from a few things that weren't the same as explained (i'll go into further detail below), everything went fairly smoothly. I was able to add the printer and print a test page, but when the test page came out, everything was mirrored. Any clues? When I say mirrored. I mean this:

Note: I blurred the printer information because I just grabbed the image off the net and reversed it. The printer information on the image had nothing to do with my own printer.

Now about the things that were slightly different than in the steps from the link above:

step 4: there was no usb printer item in the list, but the printer name DID show up: HP Deskjet 6500 Series usb, so I selected that

step 5: I did not have to enter the URI manually. I think by selecting the printer name in Step 4, it automatically entered the URI of the printer.

The printer is a HP Deskjet 6540 running on OS 10.5, fully updated. The Windows machine is running XP SP3, fully updated.

I've done a lot of fiddling around and just can't figure it out. The driver I'm using on the windows machine is the drive directly from the HP website for my specific HP printer.

Alternatively, I also tried adding the printer to CUPS by the following steps:
- start terminal
- type lpinfo -v to get the URI of the printer
- type lpadmin -p <printername> -E -v <uri> -m raw

I'm still getting a mirrored print when printing from my PC

 

[alphaod]

When you print from your Mac is it mirrored?

 

[atomicrabbit]

no

 

[skorpien]

Maybe this might help? If the original post doesn't work, you could try a few suggestions from some of the replies.

http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20060414230039896

 

[alphaod]

Go to Control Panel —> Printers.

Then right click on your printer and go to 'Properties'. There might be 'Preferences' button or something—I don't have your printer. Check and see if the "Mirror" or T-Shirt printer is checked; if it is, uncheck it, click Okay and restart your computer.

Now if it isn't check, then select the Mirror/T-Shirt option and see if it's corrected.

That's the only thing I can think of right now.

 

[atomicrabbit]

Maybe this might help? If the original post doesn't work, you could try a few suggestions from some of the replies.

http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=20060414230039896

It says to use the Generic Postscript drivers, but I don't know where they are in windows?? any ideas? Are they the Adobe Postscript drivers?

EDIT: Ok I install the Adobe PostScript files from this link and I was able to print fine (the print was NOT mirrored), but it wasn't printing in colour. When I printed a test page from the printer properties, it printed the Adobe logo in red, but when I print from anywhere else, it prints in B&W and there's no option to print in colour.

EDIT 2: ok disregard the last 'edit'. I didn't read the instructions from the site properly. I thought it said to install bonjour and use the windows printer wizard to install the printer, and since I knew I already had bonjour installed (I think from iTunes), I didn't re-install it. So when it didn't work, I decided to download and re-install bonjour and I guess it's a different version of bonjour than what comes with iTunes, because it installed a "Bonjour Printer Wizard" shortcut on my desktop and I guess it added the Apple PostScript drivers too. When I went through the bonjour wizard, it installed the printer without a problem and I was able to print perfectly and in colour. So I got it working. Thanks for the link skorpien!!! much appreciated!

@alphaod: I already checked that when I first encountered the problem. The mirror option was turned off, and even when I turned the mirror option on to test if it work come out normally, it still came out mirrored. So I'm thinking it must have been the drivers I used.

 

[MisterMe]

It says to use the Generic Postscript drivers, but I don't know where they are in windows?? any ideas? Are they the Adobe Postscript drivers?

EDIT: Ok I install the Adobe PostScript files from this link and I was able to print fine ...

EDIT 2: ... because it installed a "Bonjour Printer Wizard" shortcut on my desktop and I guess it added the Apple PostScript drivers too. ...

First off: congratulations on getting your printer setup properly. After a few fits and starts, you got it done.

As for the PostScript driver issue, PostScript is different from other printer technologies. Your OS needs one PostScript driver. The printer's device-specific features are handled by an optional separate PPD (PostScript Page Description) file. Microsoft includes a PostScript driver as part of Windows. It is usually listed as the Apple LaserWriter. For many users, the LaserWriter was the first and only PostScript printer they ever knew.

For future reference: When asked to use "Generic PostScript," use LaserWriter if you don't see Generic PostScript.

 

[atomicrabbit]

yeah I didn't know that. When I was going through the Windows Printer Wizard, I couldn't find any "generic" postscript drivers and I saw the Apple LaserWriter driver, but didn't know it was the postscript driver.

So when I searched google for "generic postscript driver", most of the links were related to the Adobe PostScript driver. So I installed that and and installed the printer using that driver and it actually seemed to work with the test print, but if I printed from any other program, it didn't print in colour....


Anyways!! Long story short (although I think it's past that, lol) I got it working after installing Bonjour separately. Like I said, I guess it installs extra stuff that the version that comes with iTunes doesn't have.

Again, thanks for the link. This damned problem was bugging me for almost 5 months!! It kinda urks me, bc I was searching google for weeks back in Sept and couldn't find anything that said to install bonjour. Most of the link said to set up the mac printer with CUPS and nothing about bonjour on windows.

 

[skorpien]

Glad to have been of help (although it was only a quick google search on my part haha) and glad to see you got it working!

Yeah, 5 months is a frustratingly long time to go without finding a solution. But the great thing I've found about the Internet is that the more time that passes from when you first encounter a problem, the higher the chance of somebody else figuring it out and posting online about it