[CUBE] Printer woes

[Joseph B. Gurman]

     Chris Hack posted the original plea in this thread:

>I bought a trusty HP4 laserjet from ebay.

     Rod Clifford reported his satisfaction with an HP 5MP, and Erik 
Ness, with a 4M, under OS X.

     The critical difference is the "M" in the printer model names --- 
they paid extra for Mac (OS 9 and earlier) support, and those are the 
only (lower cost) HP printers whose network interfaces include 
AppleTalk support and whose engines include PostScript. (So do the 
more expensive ones, such as the 8100DN and the 9000dn.) If the Print 
Center doesn't auto-recognize your type of printer, odds are Steve 
Goldstein's suggestion of GIMP should work (but I haven't tried it), 
since it should be able to speak directly to the PCL (PC-ish Printer 
Control Language) engine in you LaserJet 4.

     If your LaserJet includes PostScript support (I believe it will 
have a "P" in its name), you should be able to set it up in Print 
Center under OS X as an "lpr" (IP) printer. The queue to which you 
want to send PostScript output is usually called "raw" on most HP 
JetPrint network interface cards. To do this under OS X, launch the 
Applications/Utilities/Print Center app, select "IP Printing" from 
the pull-down menu, uncheck "Use default queue on printer," and enter 
"raw" (without the quotes) in the "Queue name" field. Under "Printer 
Model," pull down to "HP."

     The reason you're getting garbage, I believe, is that your system 
is attempting to send PostScript to a PCL queue. In summary, if the 
printer has PostScript support, try "IP printing;" if not, try GIMP.

     HTH,

						Joe Gurman
-- 
"I love deadlines. I love the whooshing sound they make as they go by."
                                                             - Douglas 
Adams, 1952 - 2001

Joseph B. Gurman, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Solar Physics
Branch, Greenbelt MD 20771 USA