I've been trying to diagnose a difficult printer problem and would like to know what these symbols mean on the print windows: 1) a dark diamond beside the name of a printer 2) a white exclamation point in a dark circle and 3) the checkbox grayed out before the name of the printer in the printer list.
If you go to print a document a window appears. If you click on the pulldown menu 'Printers:' it might display some of those symbols by the name of a printer. I believe I have seen the exclamation point icon just to the right of the pulldown menu sometimes. Or if you open the Printer Setup Utility printers listed there might show any of those 3 things I described.
I believe the exclamation mark in a circle indicates a communication problem or the printer is offline. Sometimes you can click on the symbol to obtain additional information about the problem. I've never seen a black diamond by a printer name in the Print dialog's Printer drop down menu. As for the checkbox I'm not sure I understand where you've seen that. There is a checkbox labeled "Share this printer" that does appear beside an installed printer in the Print & Fax preferences. Are you referring to that?
Can you provide a scenario in which an item has appeared? That may help in figuring out what you are seeing.
First off, I trying to diagnose a very annoying problem with an office system w/2 networked computers and a network printer. I am having difficulty getting the computers to see the printer. These computers are running Tiger (10.4.11) so I suppose I'd be on the wrong forum, but I assumed that Leopard used the same conventions as Tiger in those print windows and I just needed short reply (I thought). I have discussed my printer/network problem in detail on the appropriate Tiger forum, and still can't fix it.
In answer to your question, on opening the Printer Setup Utility there's a list of printers. To the left of the printer name is a check box which you can check. This checkbox is sometimes grayed out, I don't know what that means. Also sometimes on the printer pulldown list in the Print window there is a dark diamond by the name of the printer. Don't know what that means.
Maybe I should move to the Tiger section. Thank you for your help anyway.
OK, I still don't know exactly what the symbols may mean. I don't use Tiger anymore, but I have fooled around with a setup similar to yours that once was running under Tiger.
I assume your network has a router. Your router serves out IP addresses within some range. For example the range may be 192.168.0.2 - 192.168.0.199. What I do is to configure the printer via it's front panel to use a fixed IP address within the range used by the router. You will also have to configure a subnet mask (may be 255.255.255.0), and a Gateway IP address. These will be the same as what you will find if you open Network preferences, select the port (Ethernet or Airport, usually) then click on the TCP/IP tab. You should see the values for the computer. For a router using the IP block mentioned above the Gateway IP will be 192.168.0.1.
Once the printer is configured each computer should be able to add the printer through the Printer Setup Utility. Click on the IP icon in the PSU toolbar. Select the LPD Printer option from the drop down menu. Fill in the fields. Provide the IP address you assigned to the printer. You can provide an optional queue name if you wish or let PSU create one for you. I suggest a short name to identify the printer. On my system I use Lexmark510, which is my printer name. Stick to alpha-numeric characters, not more than 11 characters in the name. No punctuation except an underscore (_) should be used. Click on the Add button to complete the process.
When you assign the IP address to the printer be sure to select an address that is not in the typical range assigned to the computers. For example if the computers typically get an IP address at the low end of the range, then give the printer an IP address near the high end of the range.
The system is at my wife's office and I'm not there right now. As I recall the router (Airport base station) has assigned IPs and the printer is now 192.168.1.4 in the same range as the other addresses. If this is the case would it still be necessary to set a fixed address for the printer?
It isn't necessary if the printer supports DHCP addressing, but personally I've found that everything works more reliably on my printers using a fixed IP. I have two networked printers. I use an AEBS operating in the 10.0.1.1 block. It assigns IP addresses via DHCP at the high end of its range, so I use two IP addresses in the middle of the range.
All four computers can access the printers by simply configuring the PSU to use IP printing to an LPD Printer. I do it this way even today because only one of the two printers is Bonjour aware.
I finally solved my printer problem by setting the printer IP address to manual (I set it the same as its assigned DHCP address but that seemed to make a big difference)
AND I had to choose IP Printer in the window that opens when clicking 'Add Printer' button in the Printer Setup Utility then manually type in the IP address of the printer. This is a bit complicated and the menus are different in Tiger.
However I'm still in the dark about the symbols used in Tiger, but as I say this is the wrong forum for that.
