Mac - PC printer sharing?

Kuragari · 19-09-2006, 04:45

Hello,

recently, our school switched to a ton of macs and got rid of all our old pcs, and they're all the old mac iBook G4's with the ppc processor (we got a really good deal and they're working really well) and the teachers got Powerbooks, well anyways, i'm helping our tech admins b/c i'm in a directed studies class, and i've had a bunch of the teachers ask me to set up a wireless network for them at home, well i've managed to do all that well, but i'd also like to know (and also for myself because i'm using one of the iBooks),

how do i set up a network printer for a pc as the base station so that a mac laptop can connect to it over their home network and print wirelessly?

i've set up my network and made sure that "file and printer sharing" was turned on and installed under the LAN preferences, and that my printers are shared, according to one of the tech guys, that's all i need to do, but it's still not working! i'm getting frustrated and i don't want to bother him anymore because i'm sure he's tired of hearing me ask about it and saying "it's not working"

the only thing i've been able to find on the internet is that you have to install like, three programs, and do a bunch of in-depth work, i think there's probably an easier way, and so i pose the question to you guys, how do i share a printer across a wireless network with a pc as the base station and a mac laptop printing wirelessly?

thanks!

kfridge · 20-09-2006, 17:11

OK, a little clarification first:

Is the PC connected to the network wirelessly? How is the printer connected to the PC? What wireless router are you using?

depending on the above the solution may be something as simple as opening up the file and printer sharing ports - see this link.

**Chris** · 20-09-2006, 18:11

The cleanest solution would be to buy a network adapter (preferably a wireless one) for the printer, if it doesn't already have one. Once it has its own IP address from the router, you can print over IP from any machine in range, whether Mac or PC.

popper · 21-09-2006, 04:26

if you want to play around with PPC then take a look at
http://www.ppczone.org/forums/index.php site, you will find lots of devs and users there that can help with all things PPC including many PPC linux OS etc.

you dont need to worry about wireless printing as its exactly the same as wired ip printing, as long as the sending machine is connected over tcp/IP wired or wireless it will work with any currectly set wired tcp/IP printer.

you dont say what make/model printer you want ot use or their inbuilt connections usb/par/ser/ip ? what are they.

Easy Way:
you might like to look for a linux livecd for the x86 that already has tcp/ip printing setup,iv never looked for such a thing but you can be sure one of the livecd's will have it nearly all setup to boot and go.
http://search.ntlworld.com/ntlworld/.../ip%20printing
http://search.ntlworld.com/ntlworld/...ip+printing&cr=

http://www.slax.org/forum/viewtopic....=tcp++printing
http://www.slax.org/forum/viewtopic....=tcp++printing

out of interest, whats the spec of the G4 1gig? in your average machine, how much ram?.

Ubuntu PPC with a USB DVB-T stick works very well for streaming vlc multicast content over the network for instance.

Kuragari · 09-10-2006, 22:36

okay, i apologize for dredging up an old topic, but i had forgotten i posted this here ^.^ heh, i have short term memory loss problems, lol, anyways, i've tried everything and more, especially the link kfridge supplied, thank you, but it didn't work, i have the feeling i'm probably missing something very obvious here and it's just so obvious that everyone (including me) thinks i've already done it, so yeah, kfridge, my pc is wired directly into my modem, and my mac is wireless

thanks!

kfridge · 10-10-2006, 11:01

OK...follow these steps and see what happens...

open the control panel
print & fax
click the plus to add new printer
click for IP printer
in the address type \\x.x.x.x\print_share_name (where x.x.x.x is the IP of your PC)
select the print driver to use
click add

job done...hopefully!

BTW this was written using OSX 10.4.8, so some of the steps may be slightly different.

Kuragari · 13-10-2006, 05:20

still nothing... is it possible that i don't have the right or most up to date drivers for my printer on the mac or the pc? and if so, how would i check? how would i update? and would i have to update it on the mac or the pc?

thanks!

kfridge · 13-10-2006, 12:50

OK, lets go through this step by step again...just to check things!

1. printer installed on PC with latest drivers (check manufacturers web site, also what printer is it?)
2. print test from PC, OK?
3. printer shared from PC, with what name?
4. procedure followed in previous post to connect the Mac to the shared printer
5. print test sent from Mac to PC
6. print queue monitored on PC to make sure that the job is being sent to the printer - the print queue can be viewed by simply double clicking on the printer icon on the PC, if the Mac is sending the job then you should see it appear in the window.

Sorry if some of this seems a little simplistic, but it might just help to clarify things!

---------- Post added at 11:30 ---------- Previous post was at 10:59 ----------

just one other thing i thought of...what are the IP addresses of the mac and PC?

---------- Post added at 11:50 ---------- Previous post was at 11:30 ----------

found this link while googling - might be of use:
link