K
KuruMonkey
Guest
OK, so everything was sort of going swimmingly with my new OS X ways.
Except for the fact that the Minolta Magicolor 2300DL (nice network color laser) that I'd bought just after my powerbook doesn't have any OS X drivers. My fault; an expensive way to learn to check that things are OS X friendly from now on, and apparently there _is_ a workaround with open source generic drivers, but it knackers the resolution. (this depresses me to the point that I haven't brought myself to try it yet; it was a painful lesson!)
But today I decided to connect up my Epson Stylus Photo 935 (pretty nice USB inkjet). OS X recognises it (which, it turns out, is better than Epson's website can manage!), and installs its own drivers automatically.
Dandy, think I. Unfortunately OS X seems not to care about setting up the printer beyond paper size. Specifically; I can't find anywhere to tell the printer that its to print to normal paper rather than glossy photo paper, meaning saturated paper and useless print.
I assume that the built in driver is not so hot, so I go on an extended search and locate epson's drivers (only the australian site has drivers for this printer?!?). I install them, restart and find... the same situation.
Well, except that the drivers allow me to install the same printer 6 times for all the different paper sizes the printer handles, and the various "use margins" "dont use margins" options.
Still no control over the paper type (glossy, plain etc) or over the print quality.
I can't help but think back to Windows, where the driver allowed me more control than I could shake a stick at, and even told me how much ink was left in each tank.
Now, the rest of my experience with OS X has taught me that it frequently does things totally differently than windows (example; install one printer entry for each paper size, rather than select the size within the printer options), but rarely does things _worse_ than windows.
This leads me to question if I've missed something, and have not stumbled on the magical "set your printer up so that it actually prints correctly" window, especially given that OS X is famed for being great for print design. So the question is; what have I missed? Or did I manage to have a printer that just happens to be crap with OS X? (in which case, how to I ensure a replacement has drivers of some value?) Or, finally, does OS X really not provide any decent control over printing?
Advice and pointers to the right area to fix this would be very gratefully recieved.
Except for the fact that the Minolta Magicolor 2300DL (nice network color laser) that I'd bought just after my powerbook doesn't have any OS X drivers. My fault; an expensive way to learn to check that things are OS X friendly from now on, and apparently there _is_ a workaround with open source generic drivers, but it knackers the resolution. (this depresses me to the point that I haven't brought myself to try it yet; it was a painful lesson!)
But today I decided to connect up my Epson Stylus Photo 935 (pretty nice USB inkjet). OS X recognises it (which, it turns out, is better than Epson's website can manage!), and installs its own drivers automatically.
Dandy, think I. Unfortunately OS X seems not to care about setting up the printer beyond paper size. Specifically; I can't find anywhere to tell the printer that its to print to normal paper rather than glossy photo paper, meaning saturated paper and useless print.
I assume that the built in driver is not so hot, so I go on an extended search and locate epson's drivers (only the australian site has drivers for this printer?!?). I install them, restart and find... the same situation.
Well, except that the drivers allow me to install the same printer 6 times for all the different paper sizes the printer handles, and the various "use margins" "dont use margins" options.
Still no control over the paper type (glossy, plain etc) or over the print quality.
I can't help but think back to Windows, where the driver allowed me more control than I could shake a stick at, and even told me how much ink was left in each tank.
Now, the rest of my experience with OS X has taught me that it frequently does things totally differently than windows (example; install one printer entry for each paper size, rather than select the size within the printer options), but rarely does things _worse_ than windows.
This leads me to question if I've missed something, and have not stumbled on the magical "set your printer up so that it actually prints correctly" window, especially given that OS X is famed for being great for print design. So the question is; what have I missed? Or did I manage to have a printer that just happens to be crap with OS X? (in which case, how to I ensure a replacement has drivers of some value?) Or, finally, does OS X really not provide any decent control over printing?
Advice and pointers to the right area to fix this would be very gratefully recieved.
