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Sharing a cheap printer between Macs that run very different operating systems may seem impossible, but it turns out that its really pretty easy if you take advantage of free software and a stand-alone print server.

My desktop Mac runs only under OS 9. I have this computer set up to be a print server for my laptop using Apple's USB Printer Sharing software that comes as part of the old Mac OS. This works very well, so long as I keep both machines running under Mac OS 9. When I run the laptop under OS X, USB Printer Sharing no longer works because Apple has not made their sharing software compatible between OS 9 and OS X.

Many postscript printers have ethernet adapters that are built right into them. Those printers may be shared across a network using a cheap network hub or router. For those of us who can't justify spending $600 on a postscript laser printer, low-cost inkjets and non-postscript laser printers are the way to go, but they aren't designed to be shared so easily.

The challenge was to set up my computers so that I could print from my G4 PowerBook [TiBook] running either operating system without having to carry it over to my printer and plug it in. It took a $40 dollar investment and little finesse, but it worked. It should work for you, too.

Warning: The full article is graphics-intensive and may take a long time to load.

What You Need to Start

One thing that you have to know before we get too far into this story: I started out with a simple home network already up and running. I have a Linksys wireless router connected to my cable modem. That router is connected to my desktop computer with an ethernet cable and my laptop communicates wirelessly with the router using a standard Apple Airport card. This setup allows me to move around the house with the laptop, while still having full access to the internet, to files on my desktop Mac and to the printers that are connected to my desktop Mac.

My network used to look something like this:

The way that I had things configured [above] allowed me to share my printers only while both Macs ran OS 9. The moment I booted my TiBook into OS X, I lost the ability to print from native OS X applications.

Note that Classic applications can still access the printers [as configured above] using USB Printer Sharing. If you enjoy running Classic all of the time, you could save all of your print jobs as PDF files and then print them from Adobe Acrobat in the Classic environment. That solution was a little too clunky for me to adopt.

After installing the print server, my network looks like this:

You can see that the desktop computer is still connected to the printers in the same way. I still use the desktop computer and USB Printer Sharing to allow my laptop to print wirelessly under OS 9. The addition of the print server is what allows my laptop to print wirelessly under OS X.

If you haven't already got a home network then what I'm about to describe may not be much help to you. Describing how to configure a router is outside the scope of this article. Because there are so many ways to set up a network, I'm going to skip over almost all of that stuff.

The Print Server

I purchased a Netgear Wireless Ready Print Server for this job, but I'm sure that almost any similar print server will work. I chose this device primarily because it was cheap ($40 dollars), it could be connected wirelessly or using an ethernet cable and it came with a free wireless PC Card that would have cost nearly $40 dollars by itself.

The best advice that I can give you about selecting your print server is this: Make sure that you can return it for a full refund if you can't make it work. Some print servers are tricky to set up while others are practically plug-and-play. There are dozens of cheap print servers on the market and if yours isn't simple, easy and almost invisible then you can always try a different one.

There are some drawbacks to using this Netgear print server that may be true of many brands.

The most significant problem is that the print server has to be configured using special software that only runs under Windows. Once the device has been configured that first time, subsequent changes may be made from a Mac using a web browser. I used Virtual PC to run the configuration software. Once I gave my print server an IP address, I finished configuring it using Internet Explorer under Mac OS 9.

Another issue is that my print server only has one port to connect to a printer, but I have two printers that need to be accessible under OS X. My solution was to connect it to the printer that I use most frequently -- my laser printer. I plan on getting another print server for the inkjet. You might choose to buy a print server that is capable of serving to more than one printer if that suits you.

The print server should have its own unique IP address on your local network. This address should be permanently assigned -- don't use DHCP.

Now pat yourself on the back for getting your print server online. The rest of the setup is a lark.

Installing the Software

Running the TiBook under OS X, I downloaded and installed these two packages:
GIMP Print
GhostScript

GIMP Print provides unofficial printer drivers for a whole lot of printers.

Ghostscript is a postscript rasterizer that should allow your computer to talk to your non-postscript printer through a network connection that would otherwise only work with an expensive postscript printer. GIMP Print may not be necessary if you already have a working printer-driver for your inkjet, but I needed it because Epson never released an OS X driver for my inkjet and there were no network-compatible drivers available for my laser printer.

So now you have your print server connected between your printer and your network and you have installed the software. You still have to let OS X know that the printer is available. You're now just a minute or two away from printing.

Run the Print Center application and configure it to use the print server. I'll take you through it...

Select Add from the Printer List window

Select "IP Printing" from the pull-down menu

In the "Printer Address" field, type in the IP address of your print server (i.e. 192.168.nnn.nnn)

Un-check "Use default queue on server"; enter the appropriate name for your printer in the space provided.

Select the brand of printer that you will be using.

Now select the model of the printer that you will be using.

Make that printer your new default printer.

You can now verify that everything is working by making a test print from any text or graphics application.

While GIMP Print provided drivers for my inkjet printer that worked seamlessly through the print server, there were no such drivers for my Brother laser printer. That wasn't a problem because that printer emulates a Hewlett Packard laser printer, which allowed me to make use of a the generic HP driver that came with GIMP Print. Most laser printers have some sort of compatibility enhancement like this.

It took about a half-hour for me to install the print server and get it running properly. I am now happily printing wirelessly from both my desktop Mac and my laptop, regardless of which operating system I use.

It feels great when technology works to make your life a little easier, doesn't it?

>>How do I install GIMP Print?

Sorry about that. Things change over time and the latest version of GIMP Print that is available from VersionTracker is different from what it was when the article was written.

The 5.0 beta release of GIMP Print has not been made into an installation-package for Mac OS X yet.

If you want an easy installation, an older version (4.2.6) is still available here:
http://gimp-print.sourceforge.net/MacOSX.php3

Version 4.2.6 includes an installer file that you can double-click on to start the installation. From there you should know what to do.

Both versions should work well in Jaguar or Panther.