Mac and PC printer sharing problems?

Question

Am running leopard, an XP and a Vista. Printer is connected to the Mac and Printer sharing is Enabled in system preferences on the mac. Printer shows up on PC, but it cannot connect, it says that access is denied.

Thanks,

A

Answer 1

Please review these steps,

Printer Sharing from Mac OSX

This is a HOWTO for printer sharing from Mac OSX, including installation of gimp-print, using Samba to share printers with ms-windows PCs, enabling lpd printer sharing to Unix and Linux machines, and IPP to MacOSX-attached printers. For sharing from Mac to Mac, you don't need this HOWTO. If you're trying to use the printer on a Mac from a PC or Unix/Linux box on the network, the solution you need may be here.

gimp-print

Gimp-print is included with MacOS 10.3 & 10.4 so you don't need to install anything or configure a special printer queue. To use the gimp-print drivers, configure printers with a USB driver rather than an Epson or HP driver.

If you are using MacOS-10.2, the gimp-print drivers produce better output or are more versatile than those supplied by the manufacturer of the printer or the stock MacOSX drivers, and in any case you will need them to share the printer via CUPS and for programs like LyX that do not use the Mac print-center. Install the latest version, and if you have not already done so, install ESP ghostscript. See the included documentation or the Gimp-Print FAQ for OS X for instructions on how to configure printer(s) with a gimp-print driver. For a USB printer that MacOSX has automatically configured with a stock OSX driver, you should configure a second queue with a gimp-print driver. On the Mac you can choose which queue to use for specific documents. From remote machines, you will want to use the gimp-print queue.

When you have configured your printer(s), look at http://localhost:631/printers or /etc/printcap to see the queue name(s) the system has assigned to your printer(s). This is the mac-queue-name in the instructions below.

Samba

The Samba server included with MacOSX is a powerful and easy-to-configure package that shares files, printers, and other resources via the SMB protocol.

If you are running MacOS-10.2 (these two steps are not necessary on later versions of MacOS):

    * Edit /etc/smb.conf so the [printers] section looks like:

         [printers]

            comment = All Printers

            printable = yes

            path = /tmp

            guest ok = yes

    * Edit /System/Library/StartupItems/Samba/Start... to insert

         Uses     = ("Printing","Super Server");

      between the line beginning Requires and the line beginning OrderPreference.

Read the smb.conf man page or the Samba documentation to decide if you want to add to the [global] section of /etc/smb.conf:

   workgroup = workgroup-name

   hosts allow = your-network-ip

   security = share

Depending on your network configuration, you may need to change the access in the <Location/> section of /etc/cups/cupsd.conf. The configuration rules are similar to those for the Apache web-server.

Enable Samba printer sharing in System Preferences by clicking Sharing → Windows File Sharing. If you upgrade your MacOS version, check to see that Windows File Sharing is still enabled. Caution: if your network is not behind a firewall blocking ports 137 and 139, and you haven't limited access in /etc/smb.conf, enabling Samba could share your printers and files with the world.

One user has reported that with some versions of MS-Windows he needed a user account on the Mac for each user on the PCs in the network, with the exact name (including capitalization) and password as used on the PCs.

On the ms-windows PCs on your network:

    * Go to Network Neighborhood and click on the name of the Mac. You should see an entry for printers and separate entries for each printer you are sharing from the Mac.

    * Click on the printer you want to configure.

    * In the pop-up, supply the driver to use: if the Mac printer is b/w, use Apple Laserwriter; for a color printer use Apple Color Laserwriter. You may have to insert your system disk or give the path to the printer drivers for ms-windows to find the driver.

    * Click OK or Add or whatever your version of ms-windows uses to add a new printer.

I know: you probably don't have an Apple Laserwriter. You still want to use the Apple Laserwriter drivers. The goal is to send proper Postscript to the Mac, which CUPS and the gimp-print drivers on the Mac will translate to the codes your printer understands. Microsoft drivers are notorious for non-portable Postscript, but the Apple Laserwriter drivers work.

You should now be able to print from the PC to the printer on the Mac.

Good Luck!