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How can I connect to a printer in Mac OS X Snow Leopard?

I move around quite a bit as a road warrior and though I don't often need to print, sometimes being able to produce a hard copy is definitely helpful. Problem is, I don't want to bother people in different temporary offices with configuration details: I'm running Mac OS X Snow Leopard on my MacBook Pro, is there some easy way to add printers on the go?

Dave's Answer:

For years and years and years, more years than I want to admit, it's been difficult to add new printers to your operating system, whether you were a Linux die-hard, a Windows user or a Mac OS X fan. It's complicated, I admit, but still, the hours I've wasted fiddling and tweaking printer drivers is something I don't want to tally up!

Even as recently as six months ago, if your printer didn't speak "Appletalk" or "Bonjour" (formerly "Rendezvous") then you' had to figure out its IP address or similar. Not so easy.

If you've upgraded to Snow Leopard, aka Mac OS X 10.6, you'll find that there's an amazing new "nearby printers" feature included that makes adding printers scary easy.

Finally.

Basically, go to your document and request a printout, as usual. You'll see your usual printer displayed, but if you click on the printer name you'll see that the menu has more useful stuff within:

Check it out. Cool, eh? Pick a printer (I'll pick HP LaserJet P3005) and you'll then see:

mac snow leopard nearby printer gathering info

A few seconds pass -- assuming it can glean the configuration information it needs from the printer directly -- and you're ready to print:

That's all there is to it. Really. Nice. Very, very nice.

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Categorized: Mac OS X Help (Article 9094)
Tagged: linux, mac os x, microsoft windows, printer configuration, printer drivers, snow leopard
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Comments

tnx mate! just got a new laptop and really struggled to have my printer working .. hope this helps

Posted by: free at September 26, 2009 11:59 PM

I have something to say, now that you mention it, but ...

I do have a lot to say, and questions of my own for that matter, but first I'd like to say thank you for all your efforts on this Web site by buying you a cup of coffee!

I do have a comment, now that you mention it!