[disneyfan1313]

Ahhh!

It *has* to be easier than this!!! Do you really have to install all these unix progs and work in the command line? I'm trying to print to a HP Deskjet 5550 (which is supposed to work perfectly under OS X) which is on a local network at home connected to a XP box. I finally got the printer to be recognized by going into the advanced printer setup and typing the printers address.. but I can only select the generic printer driver so it just spits out blank pieces of paper. I installed the drivers from the HP CD but OS X won't let me select them (unless I am looking at the wrong thing.. anyone know where the CD would install the drivers?).

I am a switcher and everything has been great so far .. even networking the computers was easy.. I just cant beleive that this would be this hard... is it? Searches in google seem to list 100 ways to do it from ghosting printers on the XP box to installing various programs in the shell.. Help!!

[pharmelink]

I assume you went to the hp website to download the OSX drivers?

If not here's the long link:
http://h20015.www2.hp.com/en/softwar...amp;sw_lang=en

If that doesn't help have you tried connecting to the Mac and sharing it there to the XP?

[solvent211]

The easiest way I've found to do what you're wanting to do with minimal "UNIX work" is to use gimp-print + samba.

1. Download and install gimp-print. Follow steps 1-4 found here on allosx.com.

2. The remainder of the steps listed on allosx assume your printer is hooked to the Mac, so... visit the samba portion of the gimp-print FAQ here to continue with setting-up the printer connected to your XP box. The procedure says not throughly tested, but it's worked for me numerous times. Note that the HP 5550 will work with the "pcl-900" driver (PPD file).

[Agent69]

XP comes with "Print Services for Unix, which you can install through the "Add and Remove Programs" control panel. (It's not installed by default.) This is supposed to add LDP support to XP and is supposed to allow Unix clients to print to any printer installed on the XP machine.

I haven't tried this myself, so you might want to search Microsoft's Knowledge Base or search Google for more info.

[ghporter]

I agree with Agent69-install the Unix printing support and try to access the printer via its (the XP computer's) IP address. Simple, straightforward, native to your Mac and did I mention simple? Plus, there's no futzing around with command lines and switches (remember when you didn't need a command line to do ANYTHING with a Mac?) because installing and configuring this feature is all GUI in XP. What could it hurt? If it refuses to work, you've wasted maybe 10 minutes. If it does work, you're done.

[BTP]

I did much the same thing you are doing. First you need to have the printing services installed on the XP box, as Agent69 said.

With that done, you can connect to the box via Samba. This means set up a printer in Print Center and have it connect via Samba to the networked printer (in your case the XP box).

You need to enter in your info and the XP box info and you are ready to go.

It will be something like this
smb://[username]:[password]@WORKGROUP/[box name/[printer name]

The difficulty, IMHO, is the XP box where sharing is not so easy.

You can learn all about this at MacOSXHints:

http://www.macosxhints.com/article.p...query=printing

and

http://www.macosxhints.com/article.p...query=printing

Good luck.