Printing from Mac (Printer on XP Machine)

The Black Oil

Hiya,

We have two printers connected via USB cables to our XP PC. One is a HP Deskjet D4160 and the other is a HP Officejet 5610 All-in-one. After playing around for a while yesterday I managed to get my Mac (running Leopard) to print a test page to the deskjet. Seemingly, I can't print to the officejet, there are no drivers for Leopard/HP doesn't support it, one crowd blames the other, etc, etc. I was trawling the web for a few hours yesterday and wasn't able to find a way around this, tried the optional installs from the Leopard CD, no joy. There are drivers for the Officejet for Snow Leopard, though.

Anyway, the problem is I ended up deleting both printers from System Preferences in the Mac. I've tried to add the deskjet again today, but it's being stubborn so it won't print a test page or document, nada, zip. I've added and deleted it about half a dozen times. Admittedly I should have just left it installed as it was working grand...Today I've been adding the printer using the + button, then Windows, workgroup, pc, its password, then selecting the printer model, naming it, giving it a location and selecting the drivers for the Deskjet D4100 series. I'm fairly sure these are the steps I followed yesterday. I've it set to default printer, shared, as I type it says idle. When I go to print a test page, Open Print Queue, enter the password for the XP machine it says 'stopped testprint.ps'. Earlier on I went downstairs and on the queue of deskjet it said there was an error printing due to an empty cartridge which I found a bit strange so I replaced the black one. I would have thought it would be a bit faded/streaky first...it did print yesterday's page (from the Mac) and it came out well. Printing a test page from XP itself also works grand.

I'm a bit lost as to what to do. I was going to try and set up a network between my iMac and the XP machine, but I haven't really found an online guide I'm happy with and it seems a bit messy.

macgabhs

Bonjour is what I used to print to a printer connected to windows pc over wifi. Easy to set up free to download and worked without a hitch.

The Black Oil

I've spent a bit of time today trying to figure this problem out, uninstalling, installing a couple of times, trying to do it via an IP address, HP Jetdirect Socket, restarting, etc etc. No luck. I can't seem to pinpoint the problem. It still prints directly from the XP machine itself, but when I try to add the deskjet to my Mac it seems to install OK, but won't print anything, just goes straight to that printest.ps error.

I installed Bonjour on the XP machine about 30 minutes ago. I think it said the deskjet was on my Mac...which is sort of right as I installed it via the Windows workgroup. If I can do that why can't I print? Then I deleted the printer from the Mac (umpteenth time) so there was nothing for Bonjour to do... Where do I find Bonjour on Mac (sorry to be thick) and what do I do with it?

Bah.

The Black Oil

Somehow got it working in the end. Don't think Bonjour had anything to do with it, but at least I can print without going to a PC now.