Sharing an HP OfficeJet via SimpleShare NAS
My setup at home is rather unorthodox. We have a really small house. Really small. As a consequence, I don’t have an office. I don’t even have a desk at which to work. I use my laptop as an actual lap-top and work in the recliner or on the couch in our living room, where we truly live. When not in use, the MacBook Pro lives on the coffee table and, as you can imagine, it gets moved around quite a bit. All of my other equipment (DSL modem, router, web server, etc.) is located in our upstairs bedroom.
Among the various components located above me is an HP OfficeJet 5610 and a 500GB SimpleTech SimpleShare. Separately, I’ve been very happy with the performance of both devices. But, until now I had never tried to connect them.
I purchased the SimpleShare because I needed more disk space for my iTunes and iPhotos libraries, as well as somewhere to put backups. I didn’t relish the thought of dragging an external drive around the house with me and I wanted something that would be available from any computer on my network. A network-attached drive fit the bill rather nicely.
Getting the OfficeJet to play nice with the SimpleShare’s built-in print server was not the most straightforward process. HP does provide driver software for Mac OS X, so I’ve had no problem printing when the printer was directly connected to the MBP. I figured the drivers had to be on my computer somewhere, right?
I connected the OfficeJet to one of the USB ports on the SimpleShare, then used the web interface to enable the print server. The SimpleShare had no problem seeing the OfficeJet. So far, so good.
I then used the Print & Fax preference pane (I’m running Leopard) to attempt to add the shared printer. I could log into the SimpleShare and see the printer, but when I had to choose the driver, I was stuck. The driver for the OfficeJet wasn’t there. There were other OfficeJet drivers and I tried a few of them, but they didn’t work. The SimpleShare accepted the job, but nothing printed.
So, what was I using to print when connected directly? Apparently, some application that served as a proxy of some sort. There wasn’t a PPD somewhere that I could select. Damn.
Some Googling around led to others with the same problem, but no one finding a solution. So, I tried the Apple forums. BINGO!
Here’s the solution in a nutshell (all of these files are available from The Linux Foundation):
- Download and install Ghostscript
- Download and install Foomatic-RIP
- Download and install HPIJS for Mac OS X
Once these were installed, it was a simple task to add the printer in:
- Launch System Preferences and choose Print & Fax
- Under the Printers list, click the + button; this will open a printer browser window
- On the toolbar, click Windows
- Click on the name of your SimpleShare workgroup, then host; you’ll be asked to log in
- Once logged in, you’ll see the printer attached to the SimpleShare; select it
- From the Print Using drop-down, choose “Select a driver to use…”
- There isn’t a 5610-specific driver, but there is a driver for the 5600 series, and that is the one that works for me
Incidentally, the printer browser is a rather strange and buggy beast, with an unfinished feel. It doesn’t seem to be attached to any application: you can’t hide it, it doesn’t have a menu of its own, and it doesn’t go away when you quit System Preferences. When you are presented with a login panel, you have the option of saving the information in the Keychain. Although it appears to have been saved in my Keychain, it wasn’t using it because I had to enter my password every time. I also noticed that I was only able to see the printer once, then I had to reboot to see it again. I’m not sure if this is a bug in the printer browser or with the SimpleShare. I tend to think it is with the printer browser, though. These are annoying quirks and hopefully will be fixed in future updates. I’ll have to file a few bug reports.
Anyway, I’m happy with the outcome. I have more printer drivers than the law allows, but I can print from anywhere in my house. Now, if I can only find some software that will bring the printed pages downstairs for me…