Printing > Using CSLab Printers on a Mac

Using CSLab Printers on a Mac

There are two ways to configure printing on OSX. You can use LPD or CUPS.

LPD Printing on OSX

The good news is that it is relatively easy to set up a TCP/IP printer on a MAC. In order to do this, you must follow three steps:

1. Determine the name of the printer you wish to use
2. Ensure that your Mac has a well-formed hostname (This is a real gotcha)
3. Configure the printer via the native Mac "Desktop Printer Utility"

Selecting a Printer

The easiest way to determine the name of the printer you want to use is to walk over and look at it. All the printers we support should have their queue name on a label on the front or top of the printer.

Mac Hostname

Our printer daemon balks when it receives print jobs from machines with malformed hostnames. In the context of our print system, a malformed hostname is any hostname that contains spaces or non-alphanumeric characters. For example, "Bob's Laptop" is malformed, because it contains a space and an apostrophe, while "BobLaptop" is fine. Likewise, a "NULL" name is malformed, whereas "myname" is suitable.

In order to check and change the hostname of your Mac laptop please consult the appropriate section below.

On a Mac OSX:

On toolbar -> Go -> Applications -> System Preferences -> Sharing

Supply a well-formed computer name

Please Note: MAC OSx's tend to set their own computer name in a variation of the form "Bob's Machine". Again, this is not well-formed, and must be changed to "FredsMachine".

Desktop Printer Utility

After ensuring that you have the name of the printer you wish to use and that you have a well-formed hostname, start up your Mac's Desktop Printer Utility and proceed as follows. Please be aware that on certain versions of Mac OSX that you select TCP/IP printing and not CPP/IP printing.

1. Supply for Print Server Address: lpd.cs.toronto.edu
2. Supply for Queue: lw-nameofprinter i.e. lw-ba4242
3. Select "verify"
4. Test print.

CUPS Printing on Mac OSX

Start up a terminal window and become 'root'. Unfortunately, the method for enabling root is different depending on which version of OSX you are running. You will need to consult your documentation.

Add the following line to '/etc/cups/client.conf':

ServerName 128.100.3.185  # This is the IP address of cups.cs.toronto.edu

Do not substitute ServerName for cups.cs.toronto.edu

Startup an utility/application that provides printing capabilities (e.g. Firefox, Text Edit, Word:MAC, etc.) and the following will list *all* of the CUPS available printers:

File -> Print -> Printer Select the printer you wish to use.

You may need to go to System Preferences > Print & fax and select a printer from the Default Printer drop down menu.

'lpstat -v' will also display available printers. Small caveat, this process seems to trigger the MAC OSX multi-colored spinning beach ball that indicates there is a bit of a time lag.

WARNING! Sometimes the default paper size is set to be A4, make sure it is changed to US legal.

Duplex-Printing in Mac OSX

Follow the instructions for installing a printer above.

Warning! How to enable duplex printing is dependent on the version of OSX you are running and the particular model of the printer. This is a general overview, that should be able to get you started.

In OSX there are two methods of enabling duplex printing. Start up an utility/application that provides printing capabilities (e.g. Firefox, Text Edit, Word:MAC, etc.) From the Copies and Pages [Layout] choices' drop down menus, select two sided. Unfortunately, this does not work with all versions of OSX and sometimes duplex printing will need to be configured from Printers and Faxes in System Preferences.

There is no uniformity as to how to enable the duplex option between different versions of OSX. You need to select the printer and the duplex options (in most cases) will be in 'Options and Supplies' or 'Show Info'. To complicate matters even more, where to enable duplex printing, changes depending on the model of the printer, but should not be too hard to figure out from here. For further help you can contact your Point of Contact (PoC).