The Mac’s impressive printing capabilities date back 20 years to the introduction of the PostScript-based LaserWriter printer in 1985. During the transition to Mac OS X, Apple redesigned the printing system to make it easier for printer manufacturers to develop drivers, and also made it more flexible and robust. This was by no means a seamless transition, as it took time for printer manufacturers to rewrite their drivers for the new system. But, the payoff for this work has been realized: seamless printing from any application to any Mac- or Windows-based printer and beyond to PDF generation and built-in fax capabilities. What once was difficult, if not impossible, is now very easy to do.
This chapter gives you an overview of how Mac OS X’s print system works, how to add and configure local and network printers, and how to work with printers from the command line.
Mac OS X’s printing system makes use of the following technologies:
Quartz and PDF for creating print-ready output from applications.
Common Unix Printing System (CUPS ) for managing printers, printer drivers, and print jobs. CUPS also accepts print jobs using the Internet Printing Protocol (IPP). The CUPS project can be found on the Internet at http://www.cups.org.
Samba 3 for connecting to Windows SMB-based printers and for receiving print jobs from Windows clients. Additional information on Samba can be found at http://www.samba.org.
Open Directory for locating printers with LDAP, NetInfo, Bonjour, and SMB.
Generally the printers that you will use come in two varieties:
- Locally attached
Printers that are directly connected to your machine via USB or FireWire. You can always access these printers and, if you choose, share them with other computers on the network by going to System Preferences → Print & Fax → Sharing and enabling it.
- Network accessible
Printers that are either connected directly to the network (such as many laser printers in office environments) or are attached to other computers that have enabled printer sharing. Because Mac OS X understands a variety of network protocols, it can connect to printers hosted by Windows- and Unix-based machines as well as by other Macs.
In addition, there are two virtual types of printers that are built into the print system:
- Fax
From any print dialog, you can press the Fax button and fax a document with the modem built into your Mac.
Instead of printing to hardcopy, you can easily generate PDF files.