Mac's and Printing

[Grommit]

In Windows you just put in the share and it downloads the drivers and installs the printer..

 

Does the same thing work with Apple OSx or does the driver have to be installed on every Mac ?

 

As we are having issues and need a way to simplify the printing

[AntonioRocco]

Hi

 

"Does the same thing work with Apple OSX?"

 

Not in the way I think you mean. If you have a mac available that you're using as an administrating workstation you can install Apple Remote Desktop on that mac and install the 'driver' on all the other macs. This would be the way I would do it. You could still use the share approach but there's no way your Windows Server will 'know' how to install a non-Windows 'driver' on a 3rd-Party platform without some major assistance somewhere assuming such assistance was easily possible. To use the share approach you'd still have to go round each mac in turn and install it locally once you'd connected to the relevant share.

 

I suppose it's a moot point but there are no printer 'drivers' as such for networked printers. For networked printers the 'driver' is really a PPD or Postscript Printer Description File. Basically a set of instructions in plain text form that describes what features and capabilities the printer has. There is no 'engine' as such

 

"Does the driver have to be installed on every Mac?"

 

Yes.

 

HTH?

 

Antonio Rocco (ACSA)