Printing from XP to iMac printer
 

I have a Windows XP machine on my netwrok as well as an iMac running MacOS 10.4.8. The printer is a Canon MP530 all-in-one. It prints, scans, faxes, and does all the right things with my iMac but no joy with the PC.

The iMac and PC are on the same subnet of my home network. I have enabled Windows Sharing and Printer Sharing, even Personal File Sharing. In the Print & Fax control panel, I have checked the MP530 for Sharing as well.

I even thought maybe the firewall in my Linksys router was causing issues. I've turned off the firewalls for the PC and iMac, leaving the router firewall in place. I am forwarding various ports (515-631 and 137-139) to the iMac, though, in case that's an issue.

I can't see the printer as an option in XP when I try to run the Add a Printer wizard, though I can see the iMac itself. I can see the printer if I use Windows Explorer to browse to the iMac, though, which is odd. If I click on the printer there, XP says it will install drivers for the printer and the printer then shows up as ready in my list of printers for the PC. Unfortunately, though, nothing I try to print comes out of the printer. The print jobs seem to process, disappear from the queue and then nothing happens.

As a workaround, I have my ancient Epson Stylus 750 hooked up to the PC and, ironically, I can see that printer from the iMac as well. I want to use the new printer, though, with both the Mac and PC to free up desk space and retire the now-cranky Epson. And I would prefer to keep the printer hooked to the Mac since that's where I use the scanner.

What am I doing wrong? :(

Print queues on OS X expect input to be postscript, because all output from OS X apps is postscript. You need to use a color postscript driver on the PC to send postscript from the PC to the mac.
http://www.ifelix.co.uk/tech/3012.html
(a good included postscript driver on Windows is the Apple Color laserWriter xx driver)

If you're not satisfied with the generic/Apple postscript driver solution, you will have to set up a separate queue on the Mac to receive the correct Canon driver output, but not change it and pass it along to the printer. This is called a raw queue.
http://discussions.apple.com/thread....69135&#3369135

Thanks, but still stuck
 

Thanks, gsahli.

I still can't get to the printer via the Add Printer Wizard. It always says it can't be found. I can still select it by logging on to the iMac from the Windows machine and hitting the up arrow from the Desktop view. This reveals my account on the iMac, the printer, and an item called Printers and Faxes. If I try to open the printer, Windows offers to install it. I say okay and it is defined as a new printer. It installs the appropriate model Canon driver automatically but it won't print. (Again, the printer prints fine from the iMac.)

Following on your first idea, I click on properties for the printer in XP and the Advanced tab lets me install a new driver. Every time I try to install the Apple driver (or any other), though, it says "Unable to install Apple Color LaserWriter 12/600, Windows 2000 or XP, Intel driver. Operation Could not be completed." No explanation of why.

I looked at your second suggestion and it's a little advanced for me.

Any ideas?

Sounds like you've followed the same process I've used - but I don't get that error.

No other ideas.

Have you tried to add the printer on your Windows comuter as an IP printer and use the IP number of the Mac? When you open your add printer dialog box, don't select the printer connected to another computer or network, use the local printer option and add a new TCP/IP port, put in the IP number of your Mac. Then follow the directions and choose a Postscript driver from your install disk.

My solution was to rename the printer on the mac to a shorter name (less than 8 character name) as well as the user name to a shorter name. The windows machine seemed to have problems with long file names.

In the add networked printer dialog, don't navigate to the printer, specify a location //shortmacusername/shortmacprintername. If successful, you should get an authentication screen to log on to the shared printer on the Mac.

I specified the HP 8500 PS driver, this was successful in printing to and HP all-in-one. This only gets you printing, no scanning or other all-in-on features.

I also made sure both machines had the same workgroup name, but that seems to not matter now, as I must authenticate on the Mac shared resource after an XP re-boot. See my other post here:

http://forums.macosxhints.com/showthread.php?t=65542

Good luck.

Hi. I've had loads of problems printing to a shared printer from XP. All the other posts I've seen require using CUPS to set up RAW printers, then typing in IP addresses in XP. None of these instructions seem to work - my PC couldn't see the printer at all. The only way I've found is as follows:
- Enable Printer Sharing and Windows Sharing in Mac OS X
- Install Bonjour from the Apple website at http://www.apple.com/support/downloa...orwindows.html.
- Run the Bonjour Printer Wizard (this should show you a list of shared printers to choose)
- Select the Generic Manufacturer, and Generic / Postscript driver and Okay it
That's it. After installing Bonjour this process only took about 20 seconds.

Hope this helps.

Bonjour for Windows shows no available printers yet the printer shows up for other Macs via Bonjour. Any ideas?

Have a look here and see if either solves your problem.

printing with bonjour
http://www.ifelix.co.uk/tech/3014.html

printing directly from XP to Mac
http://www.ifelix.co.uk/tech/3012.html

bonjour la success
 

Bonjour found and installed my printer in about 15 seconds with no trouble. It was almost a letdown after having futzed with tricky and complicated driver installation instructions for the better part of an hour, with errors including:

• apparent successful installation of native driver but nothing prints
• unable to install Apple driver or any PS drivers: "Operation could not be completed" error

I'm running Windows XP, printing to an HP LaserJet attached to an iMac over an ethernet network.

I have the same situation - I hope you were able to figure a solution out and can tell me about it.
HP printer to time capsule
prints fine from Mac
printer shared
printer installed on (2) XP PCs via Bonjour
printer visible on (2) XP pcs - files go to queue and are hung up there "on hold"

A few of things I have found when using Bonjour to print from XP to a shared printer through a Mac:
1. If you have the install CD that came with the printer, install the Postscript driver on your XP computer, not just the PCL driver. That way when you choose your printer in the Bonjour set up you can choose the PS driver for your HP printer. If you can't find the HP postscript driver try using the Generic PS printer. If you use the Generic PS, you may not get all the functions of your printer but it will print.
2. When printing is not connecting from the XP to the Mac, I open the print queue and delete/cancel all the print jobs.
3. I then go to the Control Panel and select 'Add/Remove' programs. Wait for the list to populate and then select the Bonjour program. When you select the button to remove it a dialog box appears asking if you want to delete the program or Repair it. Select the repair button.
This usually fixes my problems.