What are the icons next to the printer name in the print sheet?

Question

What are the icons next to the printer name in the print sheet?

Ever since I upgraded to OS X Lion, I have noticed something different in the print dialogue. First the technical info: I am using a 2009 Mac Mini (4 GB RAM, OS 10.7.3) and I have a couple of printers that I use - one is a Brother laser printer (shared from an iMac, running 10.6.8) and a Canon Pixma Pro 9000, connected via USB to a Time Capsule.

When I hit Command-P to bring up the print sheet, I now get icons on the left hand side of some of the printer names in the printer list. One looks like a road sign - diamond shaped with a walking person in it, and the other is a circle with a wavy line (tilde?) in it. The other printer names have no icons next to them. I gather that the circle-and-tilde means "printer not available" (or something similar) - even though the printer is there!!! And then I wonder why the other printer names have no icons, and I have no clue what the "walking person" sign means.

I'm adding a couple of images so you all can see what I'm talking about:

What do these icons mean? I can find NO reference to them - even in Apple's knowledge base article http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4670 - this just looks like the screen shots from the 10.6 Snow Leopard page. I looked in the OS X Lion Missing Manual, but it has the same screen shots with no explanation of the icons.

This is pretty minor, but it's been bugging me for a while. 🙂 Any explanation or reference to these icons would be appreciated!

Richard

Message was edited by: Richard Williams Jr (had to correct the link!)

Mac mini, Mac OS X (10.7.3), 2.53GHz 2009 w/4GB RAM

Posted on Mar 21, 2012 10:13 PM

Reply

Answer 1

Best reply

PAHU

Level 6

16,705 points

Mar 21, 2012 11:38 PM in response to Richard Williams Jr

The one shown next to the Brother is a maintenance alert. With the Brother being shared by 10.6.8 there was issues with that OS showing SNMP alerts for toner drum replacements.

And the Pro9000 icon is printer offline. Now this alert is probably showing because of the USB port of the Time Capsule does not support bidirectional communication and thus printer utilities. Refer to article TS1253.

Reply

Answer 2

Mar 22, 2012 6:01 AM in response to PAHU

Wow, impressive, thank you! Is there a listing or other resource available that can tell me what all these symbols mean? Or are they the only ones?

As for the Pro 9000 alert, I got it to go away re-installing the printer (now I have a printer labelled Pro 9000 series - 1) with no icon, and of course it works.

Thanks!

Richard

Reply

Answer 3

PAHU

Level 6

16,705 points

Mar 22, 2012 3:04 PM in response to Richard Williams Jr

Richard Williams Jr wrote:

Wow, impressive, thank you! Is there a listing or other resource available that can tell me what all these symbols mean? Or are they the only ones?

This Mac 101: Printing article mentions some of the icons you will see in 10.6. And there is also the Mac 101: Printing article for Lion that shows some symbols. Neither show the icon you are seeing for the Brother but this is icon has been around for a while and used for warnings/information alerts.

Reply

Answer 4

Mar 24, 2012 8:10 AM in response to PAHU

Excellent, thank you!

Reply