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#295607 - 21/03/2007 00:17 Printing from a Macbook to a windows printer
Neutrino addict Registered: 23/01/2002 Posts: 506 Loc: The Great Pacific NorthWest	I just picked up a Macbook. I have a bit of a learning curve ahead of me as I have always used Windows up to now. Is it possible to use the Epson printer that is connected to a windows box to print from the Macbook? The printer is shared and accessible via a router. I can get to the drives on the workstation from the Macbook but I have not been able to print. The error that comes up is that the windows box is busy or down. When I enter the ip address of the windows box as I set up the printer on the Mac it seems to find it fine. Any ideas? _________________________ No matter where you might be, there you are.
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#295608 - 21/03/2007 03:35 Re: Printing from a Macbook to a windows printer [Re: Neutrino]
drakino carpal tunnel Registered: 08/06/1999 Posts: 7868	Quote: Is it possible to use the Epson printer that is connected to a windows box to print from the Macbook? The printer is shared and accessible via a router. I'm confused by this. Is the printer directly cabled to the Windows box and then shared, or is it cabled into a router? If so, what type of router is it? And congrats on the new Macbook.
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#295609 - 21/03/2007 05:11 Re: Printing from a Macbook to a windows printer [Re: drakino]
Neutrino addict Registered: 23/01/2002 Posts: 506 Loc: The Great Pacific NorthWest	sorry I wasn't more clear. The printer is connected to an xp box. I have no problem printing from any of the other computers on my network includinging a box that runs ubuntu. It is only the Macbook that doesn't seem to be able to find it. _________________________ No matter where you might be, there you are.
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#295610 - 21/03/2007 10:08 Re: Printing from a Macbook to a windows printer [Re: Neutrino]
petteri addict Registered: 02/08/2004 Posts: 434 Loc: Helsinki, Finland	I have the opposite setup. To get Windows to see the printer attached to the Mac I downloaded Bonjour for Windows. Perhaps that can help in your setup also.
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#295611 - 21/03/2007 13:38 Re: Printing from a Macbook to a windows printer [Re: Neutrino]
tfabris carpal tunnel Registered: 20/12/1999 Posts: 31613 Loc: Seattle, WA	Quote: The error that comes up is that the windows box is busy or down. When I enter the ip address of the windows box as I set up the printer on the Mac it seems to find it fine. With regards to windows boxes, there are two kinds of network printing. There's printing via a Windows Shared Printer, and then there's IP printing, which is a different animal. I don't remember clearly how the Mac makes the distinction between the two. But I'm wondering if you're asking it to do IP printing, but the printer is shared via Windows Sharing. I also remember needing to jump through a certain hoop on my Mac before I could print to one of the Windows Shared printers. It had something to do with installing a generic sort of driver for some kind of legacy printing system via Samba. I don't remember exactly what it was I had to do, but in the end I had to choose a similar-but-not-exactly-the-same printer model, and had a very limited amount of control over the printer's features (couldn't print in high quality for example). I remember having to look this up in the Mac help to learn how to set it up. Wish I remembered the name of the thing I had to install. There are a couple of other possibilities... There may be a driver conflict on the Windows side, you might have to update the drivers on the Windows box. Check the Microsoft Knowledge Base for articles about this (yes, I know you're on a Mac, but you'd be surprised how much they support this kind of thing). Another possibility is that the Windows Firewall is blocking one of the ports the Mac needs. Try temporarily turning off the firewall and see if that fixes the problem. _________________________ Tony Fabris
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#295612 - 21/03/2007 14:09 Re: Printing from a Macbook to a windows printer [Re: Neutrino]
mlord carpal tunnel Registered: 29/08/2000 Posts: 14505 Loc: Canada	OS-X Tiger: 1. open system-preferences. 2. click on print & fax. 3. click on + to add a new printer. 4. wait. 5. click on More Printers... 6. click on the top drop-down box, and select "Windows Printing". 7. click on the second drop-down box (just below), select "Network Neighborhood". 8. hunt for your WinXP box and printer. Good luck.
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#295613 - 21/03/2007 21:19 Re: Printing from a Macbook to a windows printer [Re: mlord]
Neutrino addict Registered: 23/01/2002 Posts: 506 Loc: The Great Pacific NorthWest	Thanks for the help guys. After following Mark's step by step instructions and adding a new user to the xp box it works great! For some reason it would not let me connect is the normal user that I login as. Oddly, Ubuntu worked fine like this but not the Mac. Edited by Neutrino (21/03/2007 21:19) _________________________ No matter where you might be, there you are.
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