Connecting HP Photosmart C4680 printer to MacBook Air via USB C adapter

That printer is quite old and has been discontinued by the manufacturer.

You might find something useful here: Reset the printing system on your Mac to solve a problem - Apple Support

I don't believe that printer supports Air Print.

You might check to see if it is supported by Gimp Print at Gutenprint Printer Drivers, but I think it is not.

Brid60 wrote:

Thanks for your response. I have tried resetting the printing system and then reloading it using the IP address (quite a research project, as this is not in my skill set!!) and the computer still tells me it can't connect. Interestingly, if I research whether my printer is compatible with a MacBook Air it says it is.

Time for a new printer!

Thanks again.

You're welcome.

Yes, the printer may be compatible with the MacBook Air hardware, but the problem would likely be an incompatibility with the OS. I suspect that at least som of the software the printer uses is 32-bit and therefore is not comaptible with the newest macOS versions since Catalina.

What version of the OS was installed on the last Mac that successfully used the printer?

Regardless, I agree that yes, it does appear to be time for a new printer.

Using an IP address would be difficult since the C4680 is not a network printer. The Mac printer drivers are for very old operating system versions, and cannot be expected to work with a modern macOS (14.6 in your equipment line?).

Drivers for Linux are available for the C4680:

https://developers.hp.com/hp-linux-imaging-and-printing/supported_devices/index

If you are experimentally inclined, you may even be able to make the USB-only C4680 network-ready and capable of printing in an AirPrint-like way to a modern Mac (or iPhone/iPad) via a small Linux-based Raspberry Pi print server. See, for example, the details posted by Techguyuk (about a Kyocera laser printer) in Can’t print with iPadOS17 - Apple Community.

Search HP webpages for a driver that might work.

You will need to delete the last print driver that was set up on your Mac.

Using a USB wired cable, you should not need an IP address because you are not using it over the internet.

HP at one point had an intermediate hardware print driver box between printers and the network - you might look to see if this works if you really want to use that old printer but you will still need some sort of printer driver.