I have a wireless network of Windows XP machines and a G5 Mac OS X. I have
a laser (HP 1000) printer attached to a USB port on an XP machine. I would
like to use my wireless network to print to it from my Mac.

Can I do this?

If so can someone direct me to some instructions.

I looked in the various "knowledge bases" and saw nothing obvious.

-Wayne

On Sun, 26 Oct 2003 21:54:20 -0500, "Wayne Happ" <whapp@comcast.net>
wrote:

>
>I have a wireless network of Windows XP machines and a G5 Mac OS X. I have
>a laser (HP 1000) printer attached to a USB port on an XP machine. I would
>like to use my wireless network to print to it from my Mac.
>
>Can I do this?
>
>If so can someone direct me to some instructions.
>
>I looked in the various "knowledge bases" and saw nothing obvious.
>
It's certainly do-able, but there are a couple of levels of problem.

1) Printer drivers: You'll need drivers for the HP LJ1000 on your Mac.
HP's drivers won't work; too many printer drivers from Apple and HP
are not designed to work across a network, even if the printer was
connected to another Mac. Unlike in Windows, this is not a simple
operating system function-- the code needs to be in the driver.

I have an HP PSC950 all-in-one; with HP's Mac drivers, it works fine
when it's connected to the Mac-- but these drivers are useless across
the network.

The solution is the open-source GIMP-PRINT
http://gimp-print.sourceforge.net/

This is a large collection of drivers for a wide-variety of printers;
moreover, even more printers than are listed work, but are not
officially supported. (My PSC950 works using their HP Deskjet
900-series driver, for instance).

Also download and install (from the same site) Ghostscript.

2) Once you have a network-friendly driver, you'll find that OS X
10.2.x'swhich I assume you're using on your G5) Print Center is less
than intuitive. To print to a Windows-networked printer, you need to
open Print Center, hold the Option key down when clicking on the Add
button, then pick Advanced then Windows Printing as the printing
method... if you don't use the secret Option-click, you don't get
Windows Printing as an advanced option.

This is much easier with Panther, where no secret keys are needed.

3) In Panther, you can next browse your network and located the
printer-- in Jaguar, you need to know the networking jargon for the
Windows computer it's connected to, and the printer's share name...
for instance, I might have an HP LJ1000 with a share name LJ1000
connected to my Dell laptop, with a network name DELL... In that case,
I could try connecting to:

smb://DELL/LJ1000

But that might not work! You might need to add your username,
password, and workgroup to the command:

smb://username:password@workgroup/machine/printer

Or try:

smb://workgroup;username:password@machine/printer

Once again, Panther makes all this MUCH easier, by letting you browse
to the printer.

4) But once you've done everything in #3, in both Jaguar and Panther,
you still need to manually select the proper driver from a long list
that includes both the printer drivers Apple includes in the OS and
the GIMP-Print drivers.

It ain't easy-- but if you upgrade to Panther, it's MUCH better!

I have a follow-up question, only in reverse.

I have an iMac running Panther with an HP Photosmart 1218 printer
connected to it via USB. I would like to be able to print to said
printer from my XP notebook.

I've turned on Printer sharing and attempted to change the printer
port assigned to the 1218 on the XP from USB to TCP/IP. No bueno.
Apple help says to print via SMB?

Anyone done this before?

Thanks a bunch,
bE


Alan Zisman <alan@nospam.zisman.ca> wrote in message news:<gobqpvomhvq9kjktre9okd1hfo9f93ft1c@4ax.com>. ..
> On Sun, 26 Oct 2003 21:54:20 -0500, "Wayne Happ" <whapp@comcast.net>
> wrote:
>
> >
> >I have a wireless network of Windows XP machines and a G5 Mac OS X. I have
> >a laser (HP 1000) printer attached to a USB port on an XP machine. I would
> >like to use my wireless network to print to it from my Mac.
> >
> >Can I do this?
> >
> >If so can someone direct me to some instructions.
> >
> >I looked in the various "knowledge bases" and saw nothing obvious.
> >
> It's certainly do-able, but there are a couple of levels of problem.
>
> 1) Printer drivers: You'll need drivers for the HP LJ1000 on your Mac.
> HP's drivers won't work; too many printer drivers from Apple and HP
> are not designed to work across a network, even if the printer was
> connected to another Mac. Unlike in Windows, this is not a simple
> operating system function-- the code needs to be in the driver.
>
> I have an HP PSC950 all-in-one; with HP's Mac drivers, it works fine
> when it's connected to the Mac-- but these drivers are useless across
> the network.
>
> The solution is the open-source GIMP-PRINT
> http://gimp-print.sourceforge.net/
>
> This is a large collection of drivers for a wide-variety of printers;
> moreover, even more printers than are listed work, but are not
> officially supported. (My PSC950 works using their HP Deskjet
> 900-series driver, for instance).
>
> Also download and install (from the same site) Ghostscript.
>
> 2) Once you have a network-friendly driver, you'll find that OS X
> 10.2.x'swhich I assume you're using on your G5) Print Center is less
> than intuitive. To print to a Windows-networked printer, you need to
> open Print Center, hold the Option key down when clicking on the Add
> button, then pick Advanced then Windows Printing as the printing
> method... if you don't use the secret Option-click, you don't get
> Windows Printing as an advanced option.
>
> This is much easier with Panther, where no secret keys are needed.
>
> 3) In Panther, you can next browse your network and located the
> printer-- in Jaguar, you need to know the networking jargon for the
> Windows computer it's connected to, and the printer's share name...
> for instance, I might have an HP LJ1000 with a share name LJ1000
> connected to my Dell laptop, with a network name DELL... In that case,
> I could try connecting to:
>
> smb://DELL/LJ1000
>
> But that might not work! You might need to add your username,
> password, and workgroup to the command:
>
> smb://username:password@workgroup/machine/printer
>
> Or try:
>
> smb://workgroup;username:password@machine/printer
>
> Once again, Panther makes all this MUCH easier, by letting you browse
> to the printer.
>
> 4) But once you've done everything in #3, in both Jaguar and Panther,
> you still need to manually select the proper driver from a long list
> that includes both the printer drivers Apple includes in the OS and
> the GIMP-Print drivers.
>
> It ain't easy-- but if you upgrade to Panther, it's MUCH better!