wireless printing

Hello,
I have a HP Deskjet printer and I wish to use it with my iMac. However I need to use wireless because the printer is not near my computer. What do I have to do???


Thank you

I used to use a D-Link wireless print server to wirelessly print from my PC to my HP Deskjet, however, I was never able to get it to work with OS X. I now use a Time Capsule which has a built in print server and it works perfectly. The TC is a little pricey, but I saw a couple refurbs on the Apple site earlier today. It's a good deal if you also need an external drive and an N-router.

Does your printer have wireless network in it? My office jet hooks directly to my router and all printers on my network can print to it.

TC has print server integrated? How do you access that?

MacChris said:

TC has print server integrated? How do you access that?

Click to expand...

Go into the AirPort Utility and look for the printing option. I am not at home right now or I would go into more detail.

Getting to the printer setup on a Time Capsule is pretty easy. Launch the Airport Utility and choose Manual Setup. The next screen has a printer setup button. Setup is pretty easy. If your printer already has wireless capability built in try that first though. Sometimes it will give you access to some functions that the time capsule does not such as utilities to check the ink levels.

zukermaister said:

Hello,
I have a HP Deskjet printer and I wish to use it with my iMac. However I need to use wireless because the printer is not near my computer. What do I have to do???


Thank you

Click to expand...

Unfortunately, aside from using Apple's own AirPort Express/Extreme or Time Capsule (which includes their print server), most printers don't play ball with third party print servers. This is a major flaw of OS X. Unlike Windows, OS X has no facility for "port redirection", that capability is left up to the printer manufacturer. So, if the printer manufacturer ties the device exclusively to USB, that's the only way you can make the driver show up to add it.

There are some hacks and workarounds - in some cases, you might be able to use an open source driver that will play ball with a print server. But in all honesty, I've found that it's easier and less expensive just to buy a printer with built-in networking that is advertised as being Mac compatible.

For example, the HP Photosmart C6350 that I bought at Costco is pretty much plug-and-play with my Macs and PCs. In fact, it shows right up in Bonjour. That printer ran me $109 at Costco and works like a charm. I spent hours fighting with different network adapters for my older printers and fussing with OS X to actually get them to work as intended. In hindsight, I should have done this years ago.

Winners and losers

I have tried on and off to print wirelessly from this iMac via Airport Express, and no go. But our recently purchased Dell laptops running Linux Mint 8 recognized the printer instantly, wireless via Airport Express, nothing required of me! In fact, most things seem to work better out of the box on that Linux distro, than does the Mac.

zukermaister said:

Hello,
I have a HP Deskjet printer and I wish to use it with my iMac. However I need to use wireless because the printer is not near my computer. What do I have to do???


Thank you

Click to expand...

How far is your printer, and is it hooked up to another computer on the wireless network?

Airport express hooked up to the printer will fix it.
So will having that printer hooked to another computer on the network, but you have to have that computer on when you want to print.