Lion drivers for Dell 5210n printer?

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Level 1

14 points

Lion drivers for Dell 5210n printer?

Where I currently work, we have a completely able Dell Laser Printer 5210n and unfortunately, using my MacBook, I am unable to successfully use it to print, which is proving to be be rather inconvenient. The computer is networked via the router and in System Preferences, I am able to see it however when I attempt to print, I get the following error:

/Library/Printers/Dell/filter/pstopsprinter1 failed

To compound the inconvenience, the drivers from the Dell website unhelpfully only go to OS X 10.4 but from googling the error message, the top result suggests that it can be fixed by installing Rosetta Stone which tallies with a suggestion in this thread here but as far as I'm aware this is no longer an option when running Lion and even if it were, is not an avenue I wish to go down in order to be able to print.

Another thread here has a link to this blogpost where someone has apparently succeeded in getting a Dell 5100cn to work with Lion but are there any further options I can explore in order to be able to print? How can it not be incumbent on companies to provide necessary drivers for their products to work with subsequent iterations of software when the hardware itself continues to work well?

MacBook Pro (15-inch Mid 2010), Mac OS X (10.7.5)

Posted on Oct 6, 2012 7:57 AM

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Answer 1

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Matt Broughton

Level 5

4,985 points

Oct 6, 2012 9:00 AM in response to pinkbeats

There is a significant difference between the Dell 5100cn you link to and your Dell 5210cn. The 5100cn is a true PostScript printer. Your 5210cn emulates PostScript. See the brochures for the 5100cn and the 5210cn for comparison.

The difference is that a printer that emulates a printer language usually needs a patch file to print properly. Of course, you can try just using a Generic PostScript printer driver. It may give you basic functionality.

In addition, the 5210cn has extra capabilities that come from PDEs -- print driver extensions. As you mention, Dell only provides drivers through OS X 01.4. Beginning with OS X 10.5 or OS X 10.6, there was a major change in what was required for printer drivers. One change was that all PDEs had to be 4 way fat. That means that the PDEs had to include PPC (32 bit and 64 bit) and Intel (32 bit and 64 bit) components.

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Answer 2

Oct 6, 2012 6:28 PM in response to pinkbeats

I took a further look at Dell's site for the 5210cn. They did show that they had Linux drivers available. I downloaded those to take a look at them. It would appear that Dell feels the printer can actually print a PostSript file with it being patched. I extracted the PPD file and uploaded it to my web space. You can get it here. I will leave it there for about a week or so.

I make no guarantees that this will work, but it should give you all the printer choices that would not be available in a Generic driver.

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Answer 3

pinkbeats Author

Level 1

14 points

Oct 7, 2012 11:27 PM in response to Matt Broughton

Thanks for taking the time to look into this Matt.

When I attempt to download the file, it prompts me for a username and p/w. I can click past that using Save Link As... but the file it then downloads is empty.

ta,

Scott

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Answer 4

Oct 8, 2012 6:02 AM in response to pinkbeats

Oops. I posted the wrong protocol (ftp rather than http). Try this link.

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Answer 5

pinkbeats Author

Level 1

14 points

Oct 8, 2012 7:48 AM in response to Matt Broughton

Thanks Matt - downloaded and moved the file to:

Main Disk > Library > Printers > Contents > Resources

Deleted the printer and then re-added it, selecting the software manually and pointing it to where I just moved the file. Did a test print of an email and it worked, many thanks.

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Answer 6

Oct 8, 2012 5:46 PM in response to pinkbeats

I am glad to hear that it is working for you. I always cringe when I see that a printer uses an "emulated" language. You never know whether it really works with that language or whether some sort of patch file is needed.

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Answer 7

Feb 9, 2013 1:15 PM in response to Matt Broughton

Thank you very much. This worked for me too. I don't have much Mac experience, but it was easy. Took less than 5 minutes for this giant Dell to go from eWaste to perfect. 🙂

(Plugged the printer into my wireless modem/router's 4-port switch. Made a wireless connection from my Macbook Pro to the printer.)

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Answer 8

pinkbeats Author

Level 1

14 points

Nov 14, 2013 2:59 PM in response to Matt Broughton

I will most likely be upgrading from Lion to Mavericks in the next month - if I employ the same procedure that you described that worked for me in Lion, should there be any reason why it won't also work after I've done a clean install of Mavericks? Many thanks.

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Answer 9

pinkbeats Author

Level 1

14 points

Dec 19, 2013 2:28 AM in response to Matt Broughton

Thanks Matt for re-enabling the download.

Having installed Mavericks, I am not aware of what has changed but after seeing and adding the printer in System Preferences > Printers & Scanners, I was able to sucessfully print without having to copy and install the provided file; although I did have the PPD file saved in a Dropbox folder, unsure that has any bearing, i.e. the system needed that file and then searched for and located it there.

Anyway, as things currently stand, all working.

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Answer 10

May 8, 2014 5:26 PM in response to Matt Broughton

Hi Matt,

I am having the same problem that it seems everyone had before with the same printer,

I saw that you've helped people before with this, and I hope you can kindly help me as well,

I can't get this to work, and can't find the drivers to work with OS X, version 10.9.2, can you help me sharing some light on how to do this, if it's possible? Thanks!!

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