Postscript vs PCL, USB vs IP printer
Hi there,
ran into an interesting problem with my HP LaserJet 2000 series PCL printer (NOT Postscript) and how Tiger selects/uses the printer drivers for it which I wanted to share and see whether other people were faced with a similar problem.
I got a Mac Mini and a PPC Powerbook 15", and an HP LaserJet 2000 series PCL printer. The printer features both a USB interface and an Ethernet card.
If I connect the printer via USB and install a new printer for it, Tiger immediately discovers the printer correctly, offers the corresponding driver, and there you print, no problems.
If I connect the printer to my home network (or directly to one of the computers) via Ethernet and install a new printer for it, after entering the IP address of the printer, Tiger immediately discovers the printer correctly again, offers the corresponding driver, and ... sends native Postscript to the printer which leads to quite some interesting waste of paper because it is just a PCL printer without Postscript capabilities which interprets the Postscript sent to it as plain text. I only got the printer to run correctly on PCL with either the GIMP or HPIJS drivers (both work great), selected manually(!) but never with the automatically discovered driver which always produces Postscript.
Now, I consider this weird. Why would Tiger try to send Postscript to a PCL printer while on Ethernet, but apparently send PCL while connected via USB?
Well, I got it to work after quite some headaches, but just want to understand what is going on here... any ideas?
Thanks
DocJoc
Mac Mini, and Powerbook 15" (PPC) on Mac OS X (10.4.4), connecting HP LaserJet 2000 series PCL printer with different drivers
ran into an interesting problem with my HP LaserJet 2000 series PCL printer (NOT Postscript) and how Tiger selects/uses the printer drivers for it which I wanted to share and see whether other people were faced with a similar problem.
I got a Mac Mini and a PPC Powerbook 15", and an HP LaserJet 2000 series PCL printer. The printer features both a USB interface and an Ethernet card.
If I connect the printer via USB and install a new printer for it, Tiger immediately discovers the printer correctly, offers the corresponding driver, and there you print, no problems.
If I connect the printer to my home network (or directly to one of the computers) via Ethernet and install a new printer for it, after entering the IP address of the printer, Tiger immediately discovers the printer correctly again, offers the corresponding driver, and ... sends native Postscript to the printer which leads to quite some interesting waste of paper because it is just a PCL printer without Postscript capabilities which interprets the Postscript sent to it as plain text. I only got the printer to run correctly on PCL with either the GIMP or HPIJS drivers (both work great), selected manually(!) but never with the automatically discovered driver which always produces Postscript.
Now, I consider this weird. Why would Tiger try to send Postscript to a PCL printer while on Ethernet, but apparently send PCL while connected via USB?
Well, I got it to work after quite some headaches, but just want to understand what is going on here... any ideas?
Thanks
DocJoc
Mac Mini, and Powerbook 15" (PPC) on Mac OS X (10.4.4), connecting HP LaserJet 2000 series PCL printer with different drivers