AppleTalk printing - anyone with experience?

[Brian SD]

The tech 'experts' at my office know next to nothing about Apple computers so I have to do pretty much all the troubleshooting and setting up for the design computers..

We have two main computers, an older G4 system, and an intel-based Mac. The G4 has a postscript printer plugged in via USB, but I need to be able to print from the intel since that is the computer that I use.

One of the great things about AppleTalk is that it automatically sets up Postscript printing so you can share a computer over the network and still get full postscript functionality, but my problem is that I cannot seem to figure out how to designate the printer to be shared over AppleTalk - right now it's detecting the printer, but it cannot use any postscript functions because it's finding the printer via some other ethernet network function, but not AppleTalk.

I know this is a longshot but I cannot find anything specifically for this out there on the web so if anyone has any experience here, I would really appreciate it.

 

[GQgeek]

Try the arstechnica forums. You'll have much better luck there.

 

[Parker]

Hi Brian. You probably did this already, but did you check Printer Sharing under System Preferences > Sharing > Services and Firewall. Otherwise, I don't know. I've got the same issue in my office.

 

[Brian SD]

Originally Posted by Parker

Hi Brian. You probably did this already, but did you check Printer Sharing under System Preferences > Sharing > Services and Firewall. Otherwise, I don't know. I've got the same issue in my office.

Thanks. I did this already, yea.. I think it might not be possible without using a dedicated print server.

 

[Buickguy]

You didn't say which version of the OS you are running on the G4. Depending on the release, you may need some software to run the G4 as a print server. I've run AppleTalk since early days and there were small freeware and shareware utilities that could be added. With the more modern releases you set the system to share the printer.

 

[Brian SD]

Originally Posted by Buickguy

You didn't say which version of the OS you are running on the G4. Depending on the release, you may need some software to run the G4 as a print server. I've run AppleTalk since early days and there were small freeware and shareware utilities that could be added. With the more modern releases you set the system to share the printer.

All the comps on the network have the latest version of 10.4

 

[Buickguy]

It should be easy enough since all of the OS X series has the utilities you need for sharing a printer. The Mac Help built in should be a great asset. On the G4, go to the Mac Help and type in sharing a printer. It should guide you through selecting, shaqring and making sure appletalk is on and running over your ethernet connection. Then just set the printer on the intel based mac and you should be set.
Another aption is setting up a wireless network with an Apple AirPort Extreme base station. The base station has a USB port on it and can act as a print server as well as a router.

 

[tiecollector]

I eventually gave up on printer sharing and finally bit the bullet and bought a postscript laser printer with ethernet onboard. Now I can print on M$, OS X, and Linux.

Unfortunately, I've never used OS X to share a printer. It should work though since they are all OS X and no mixed OS.

 

[Brian SD]

I had some guys come in today and they were clueless.. we sat there for an hour trying to figure out what to do, consulted Epson guides and OS X guides... I think it's because it's an older model that we can't get it to work right.. it's about 3 years old.

The printer sharing is incredibly easy, as noted. I re-went through the steps to share the printer many times, but unfortunately I still cannot access the postscript options. Either we need to set up a print server through AirPort, or get a new printer, unfortunately.

 

[Dakota rube]

Brian, that sounds like a driver issue on the computer _not_ connected directly to the shared printer. You said you could "see" the printer, right? I'm only on 10.3.9 so things are a little different, but in your printer and fax prefs you should be able to see and "enable" all the ps functions if the proper driver is installed.

You might be running into incompatible driver issues. See if Epson has new driver for the 10.4.whatever you're on.

 

[Brian SD]

Originally Posted by Dakota rube

Brian, that sounds like a driver issue on the computer _not_ connected directly to the shared printer. You said you could "see" the printer, right? I'm only on 10.3.9 so things are a little different, but in your printer and fax prefs you should be able to see and "enable" all the ps functions if the proper driver is installed.

You might be running into incompatible driver issues. See if Epson has new driver for the 10.4.whatever you're on.

That was the first thing I tried, unfortunately. I've reinstalled the drivers several times. Although I've never seen an option to specifically enable the PS functions. Is there some stupid checkbox somewhere that I'm missing?

 

[Tokyo Slim]

 

[SGladwell]

I had some annoyances setting up my MBP to use the networked poster printer in our office, which is for some awful reason attached to a computer rather than just networked itself even though it clearly has an ethernet port on it. An e-mail to HP resulted in a driver being e-mailed to me, and since then it's gone without a hitch.

 

[mrchapel]

Give this a shot:
http://db.tidbits.com/article/07129

Accessing the CUPS system is probably what you need...

 

[tiecollector]

Originally Posted by mrchapel

Give this a shot:
http://db.tidbits.com/article/07129

Accessing the CUPS system is probably what you need...

This is how you setup an OS X printer to share with Windoze and Linux. I would have thought that there would be a purely AppleTalk method. CUPS should definitely work though. In OS X 10.3 I had weird issues with it but should work ok on a homogeneous network.