Samsung SCX-4521F driver - print to Windows network

As far as I know, Samsung doesn't provide CUPS drivers. CUPS drivers are required to use the "standard" network protocols in OS X.

Exceptions - if the printer is a postscript printer, that is supported by just a PPD, by the native OS X driver. Or, if the printer has built-in ethernet or WiFi, Samsung is almost certain to provide a proprietary driver for the network connection.

Thanks for the reminder. All I can advise is to research whether one of the other drivers will work for this model.

All in ones are problematic from many angles. Front-panel monitoring software is even more trouble than print drivers. But I understand some people are space-limited.

If you want the printer shared from Windows, you should pick one that has a CUPS driver. Here are the known CUPS drivers (Also remember that Brother provides CUPS drivers for many new models!):
http://www.linuxprinting.org/macosx/
http://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=1537
http://www.printfab.net
http://www.easysw.com/printpro/

Let's see - if I can extract the PPD, I can tell if it uses the samsung-gdi driver.
(The PPD in CUPS printing includes a unix command line that tells you pretty much which components are needed - ghostscript, foomatic, etc)

No, this PPD tells me that Samsung wrote a complete driver for linux cups. The only way you could make this work on OS X is if they recompile it for OS X.

Here was the clue:
*cupsFilter: "application/vnd.cups-postscript 0 rastertosamsungspl"

rastertosamsungspl is a page conversion filter, included in the linux package.

If someone could tell us if rastertosamsungspl output is the same as samsung-gdi (ghostscript), then we could modify the PPD to use ghostscript on OS X.

I took a look at the User Manual from Samsung's site. It lists the printer Emulation as SPL (Samsung Printer Language). It would be worth a try with the samsung-gdi drivers from linuxprinting.org. Be sure to install ESP Ghostscript also. I think the PPDs in that download are pretty much all the same. You might want to try a couple of them if the first choice doesn't get anything from the printer.

If that works, then it might be possible to alter the 4521F PPD. Sometimes that doesn't work as well as one might think. There are frequently limitations in the driver. The Samsung supplied PPD may fail in some or all circumstances.

Matt

Mac Mini G4; B&W G3/300

This is pure speculation on my part:
The CUPS driver dev kit isn't Apple software - you get it from cup.org (or by Fink). I think the manufacturers are slow to accept this open-source, separate-from-Apple concept. The Carbon developer kit and docs/samples are Apple-owned and provided.

Ya, it has to do with Apple having two APIs (programming interfaces) for printing, and not forcing printer manufacturers to use the new one for CUPS. That's what Micro$oft would have done...