Mac OS X Tiger for Unix Geeks, 3rd Edition

Chapter 6. Printing

Mac OS X offers a rich and flexible set of tools for administering and using a wide variety of printers. Common Unix tools—such as lpr, lpq, and lprm—are here as well, along with a few new ones just for Mac OS X.

This chapter starts out with a basic discussion of how to use the Printer Setup Utility (/Applications/Utilities), a GUI tool for configuring local and network printers. Then we’ll move on to discuss the Mac OS X implementations of the Unix printing tools. In particular, we will discuss the Common Unix Printing System (CUPS), Gimp-Print, and HP InkJet Server (HPIJS).

Printer Setup Utility

If you’re using a popular USB printer under Mac OS X, it is likely that all you’ll need to do is connect it to the USB port and choose the printer in the Print dialog when you want to print a document. However, there are some circumstances where it’s not so simple:

• Perhaps your USB printer does not automatically show up as an available printer in the Print dialog

• Maybe you want to share your printer with other computers on your LAN

• Perhaps you want to use a network printer such as one listed in Open Directory, an AppleTalk printer, or one for which all you have is an IP address

If you haven’t already set up a printer using the Printer Setup Utility, there are three ways to add a new printer in Mac OS X:

Add a printer automatically

Attempting to print a document from virtually any application automatically launches the Printer Setup Utility. Mac OS X first informs you that ...