Printer woes

Posted by nigel on Wed, 03/03/2010 - 21:18 in Blogs 798 2 comments | report

Mac life has been pretty quiet this year, so I finally said goodbye to my ailing PC. Big mistake!

The PC has been acting as my central server, in the sense that the Internet connection and printer were attached to it. Internet is no problem - in fact it's far more reliable now that the PC has gone. Previously I was forever re-booting the router to restore the wireless connection.

But printing is a different matter! It turns out that my Canon laser printer (LBP2900 if anyone is interested) is one of the many that are just not designed to connect to a Mac. Canon doesn't supply a proper printer driver for it, and all the help I have been able to track down on this model suggests that some people - I suspect the Mac anoraks out there - manage to get it to work, but the majority of ordinary users just give up and go out and buy a new printer. I wouldn't mind but I have two toner cartridges in stock for it, and both cost me more that the original printer!

I think I'll track down a local Mac expert and see if I can get it sorted before I replace it. It has to be worth paying for some support time before I write off over £100 of investment in hardware and consumables. Now I just need to find that Mac engineer ...

Comments

Printer woes

PeterHFCCA | Mon, 08/03/2010 - 13:38 | Permalink

When looking for toners for my canon lbp2900 I discovered that it is an HP printer or at least has an HP equivalent.Could you install it as such on your MAC. Inkjet and toners gave me the info

Strange...

KH | Wed, 10/03/2010 - 09:23 | Permalink

I also use a Mac, but have always found that I never need printer drivers ... literally, it's always been just plug and play, i.e. plug in the printer and the Mac automatically finds and instals the right driver for it. So I presume that your printer is either pretty old, or you are using an old Mac operating system, or you love arcane printers ????

Whenever I've come unstuck in the past I've always used the online Mac community to help me out. Having said that, it's no good asking where I looked since it's now quite a few years since I had any problems needing online help.

Wishing you all the best with this.

-- KH

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Nigel Harris's Mac Diary

For nearly two decades, accountants have given a wide berth to the Apple Macintosh, favouring the more mainstream PC. Encouraged by some of his clients, Nigel Harris decided to buck the trend. This is the story of his new computing life.

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