How to print with Gutenprint in Mac OS X (10.2 and later) By Tyler Blessing with Robert Krawitz and Andy Stewart

Transcription

1 How to print with Gutenprint in Mac OS X (10.2 and later) By Tyler Blessing with Robert Krawitz and Andy Stewart Gimp-Print has been renamed Gutenprint in order to clearly distinguish it from the GIMP (the GNU Image Manipulation Program). The last release under the Gimp-Print name was Later versions use the Gutenprint name. You may have both Gimp-Print and Gutenprint 5.0.x or 5.1.x installed concurrently and choose which to use. They use different file structures or names and will not conflict with each other. This document may use the names interchangeably. The example images shown in this document may look slightly different than those displayed on your Mac. "Print Center" is called "Printer Setup Utility" in Mac OS X Panther and Mac OS X Tiger. For Mac OS X Leopard, all printer setup functions have been moved to the Print & Fax System Preference pane. Setting up a USB Printer Before proceeding, make sure your USB printer is turned on and properly connected to your Mac with a known-good USB cable. If you are having problems using a parallel-to-usb converter cable, try the alternative CUPS backend (communications software) usbtb, try using a different converter cable brand, or consider the network setup option described later in this document. OS X 10.5 (Leopard) 1) Open System Preferences and click on the Print & Fax preference pane. Click on the + (plus sign) below the list of printers. A new printer browser window will open.

2 2) Click the Default browser button and highlight your printer You may change the printer s Name if you so desire. Available drivers will be matched to the printer based on how the printer identifies itself to the printing system. These drivers will appear in the pop-up menu near the bottom of the window. Choose the driver you want to use. Note: a) If you do not see your printer's name in the list or an appropriate Gutenprint/Gimp-Print driver is not automatically matched to the printer, you may need to reset the print spooler. First, quit Printer Setup Utility. Make sure that your printer is turned on and properly connected, then go to the Sharing pane of System Preferences and click the checkbox for Printer Sharing; changing this setting will reset the print spooler. As far as setting up a USB printer is concerned it does not matter whether Printer Sharing is turned on or off, it is the act of turning it on or off that resets the spooler. When you have finished, open Printer Setup Utility, return to step 1, and begin again.

3 3) Click the Add button to complete the setup. Finished! Your printer will now appear in the Printer Setup Utility Printer List and in application print sheets.. OS X 10.4 (Tiger) 1) Launch Printer Setup Utility (located in /Applications/Utilities). Click on the Add button in the toolbar or select Add Printer from the Printers menu in the menu bar. A Printer Browser window will open. or

4 2) Click the Default Browser button and highlight your printer You may change the printer s name if you so desire. Available drivers will be matched to the printer based on how the printer identifies itself to the printing system. These drivers will appear in the pop-up menu near the bottom of the window. Choose the driver you want to use. Notes: a) If you do not see your printer's name in the list or an appropriate Gutenprint/Gimp-Print driver is not automatically matched to the printer, you may need to reset the print spooler. First, quit Printer Setup Utility. Make sure that your printer is turned on and properly connected, then go to the Sharing pane of System Preferences and click the checkbox for Printer Sharing; changing this setting will reset the print spooler. As far as setting up a USB printer is concerned it does not matter whether Printer Sharing is turned on or off, it is the act of turning it on or off that resets the spooler. When you have finished, open Printer Setup Utility, return to step 1, and begin again. b) This illustration shows the standard USB connection as well as the alternative usbtb connection. c) This illustration shows that you are able to have version 4.2.x of the Gimp-Print drivers installed at the same time as the version 5.0.x Gutenprint drivers.

5 3) Click the Add button to complete the setup. Finished! Your printer will now appear in the Printer Setup Utility Printer List and in application print sheets.. OS X 10.2 (Jaguar) and OS X 10.3 (Panther) 1) Launch Print Center or Printer Setup Utility (located in /Applications/Utilities/). Next, hold down the keyboard option key and either click on the Add button in the toolbar or select Add printer... from the Printers menu in the menu bar. A printer set-up sheet will open. + or

6 2) Click on the top pop-up in the set-up sheet and select Advanced. Note: you will not see the Advanced menu item if you didn't hold down the option key in step 1! 3) Click on the Device pop-up and select your printer's name from the bottom of the list. Note: if you see only USB Printer (usb) and not your printer's name in the list, then you either have a bad USB connection or else you need to reset the print spooler. First, make sure that your printer is turned on and properly connected, then go to the Sharing pane of System Preferences and click the checkbox for Printer Sharing; changing this setting will reset the print spooler. As far as setting up a USB printer is concerned it does not matter whether Printer Sharing is turned on or off, it is the act of turning it on or off that resets the spooler. When you have finished return to step 1 and begin again.

7 When you select your printer the Device Name and Device URI fields will be filled in for you automatically. You may change the Device Name now if you wish (this is the name displayed for this printer in the Print Center Printer List and in application print sheets). Do not change Device URI. 4) Click on the Printer Model pop-up and select your printer's manufacturer; then select the correct driver for your printer in the Name browser. Please note that Gimp-Print supports hundreds of printers and many have similar names or model numbers be careful to select the correct driver! 5) Click Add to complete the setup. Finished! Your printer will now appear in the Print Center Printer List and in application print sheets.

8 Setting up a Network Printer You can make almost any Gutenprint supported printer available to multiple computers on a network by using an inexpensive parallel-port-to-ethernet print server. Additionally, many popular b wireless routers include a built-in parallel-port print server that works well for this purpose. If your printer is supported by Gutenprint and it is available over TCP/IP via a built-in network card (such as the Epson 10/100 ethernet type-b card available for certain printers) or via an inexpensive network print server (as described above) then you can set up your printer for IP printing with Gutenprint: OS X 10.5 (Leopard) 1) First you need to get the Protocol, IP address, and Queue Name for your printer (or print server) from your network administrator. If you are the administrator for your network consult the documentation that came with your network device to learn how to determine this information. If you can't determine the Queue Name for your print server try using the default queue first. If that fails try a common queue name like lp (lower case LP). If you don't use the correct queue name you won't be able to print 2) Open System Preferences and click on the Print & Fax preference pane. Click on the + (plus sign) below the list of printers. A new printer browser window will open.

9 3) Click the IP Printer button and select the Protocol to be used. 4) Fill in the Printer's Address and Queue Name in the appropriate boxes. 5) The Name will automatically be filled in with the IP address. You may change this to be more descriptive. You may even enter a descriptive Location. Click on the Printer Using pop-up and select your printer from the list of printers. Please note that Gutenprint supports hundreds of printers and many have similar names or model numbers. Be careful to select the correct driver! When this is done, click on the Add button at the bottom right of the window. Finished! Your printer will now appear in the Printer List and in application print sheets..

10 Recap: The entire Printer Browser window will look like this when you are ready to click the Add button. OS X 10.4 (Tiger) 1) First you need to get the Protocol, IP address, and Queue Name for your printer (or print server) from your network administrator. If you are the administrator for your network consult the documentation that came with your network device to learn how to determine this information. If you can't determine the Queue Name for your print server try using the default queue first. If that fails try a common queue name like lp (lower case LP). If you don't use the correct queue name you won't be able to print 2) Launch Printer Setup Utility (located in /Applications/Utilities). Click on the Add button in the toolbar or select Add Printer from the Printers menu in the menu bar. A Printer Browser window will open. or

11 3) Click the IP Printer button and select the Protocol to be used. 4) Fill in the Printer's Address and Queue Name in the appropriate boxes. 5) The Name will automatically be filled in with the IP address. You may change this to be more descriptive. You may even enter a descriptive Location. Click on the Printer Using pop-up and select your printer's manufacturer; then select the correct PPD for your printer in the Model Name browser. Please note that Gutenprint supports hundreds of printers and many have similar names or model numbers. Be careful to select the correct driver! When this is done, click on the Add button at the bottom right of the window. Finished! Your printer will now appear in the Printer Setup Utility Printer List and in application print sheets..

12 Recap: The entire Printer Browser window will look like this when you are ready to click the Add button. OS X 10.2 (Jaguar) and OS X 10.3 (Panther) 1) First you need to get the Protocol, IP address, and Queue Name for your printer (or print server) from your network administrator.. If you are the administrator for your network consult the documentation that came with your network device to learn how to determine this information. If you can't determine the Queue Name for your print server try using the default queue first. If that fails try a common queue name like lp (lower case LP). If you don't use the correct queue name you won't print 2) Open the Print Center or Printer Setup Utility (located in /Applications/Utilities/) and click the Add button in the Print Center toolbar, or select Add printer... from the Printers menu. A printer set-up sheet will open. or

13 3) Click on the popup at the top of the sheet and select IP Printing. 4) Fill in the Printer's Address and Queue Name in the appropriate boxes. 5) Click on the Printer Model pop-up and select your printer's manufacturer; then select the correct PPD for your printer in the Model Name browser. Please note that Gimp-Print supports hundreds of printers and many have similar names or model numbers... be careful to select the correct driver!

14 6) Click Add to complete the setup. That's it! Your printer will now appear in the Print Center Printer List and in application print sheets. 7) (Optional) If you want to give your network printer a more descriptive name select it in the Printer List window and choose Show Info from the Printers menu to open the Printer Info window. Within the Printer Info window you can change the Printer Name & Location, select a different Printer Model or configure your printer's Installable Options. To change the name displayed in the Printer List (and print sheets), choose Name & Location.

15 Modify the Printer Name and Location data as appropriate, then click Apply Changes. Changes you make in the Printer Info window take effect immediately.

16 Changing settings while printing In any print sheet, switch to the Printer Features panel to see the options available for your device. Be sure to look through all of the Feature Sets. As the Gutenprint/Gimp-Print drivers have evolved, the number of user controlled settings has grown tremendously. We will look at some of the most commonly used features in this document. You are encouraged to explore all the choices available in conjunction with the companion document Gutenprint User Manual.pdf also included on this disk image. Set 1 contains the most commonly accessed settings

17 Color Model RGB Color is the default output mode. The driver will convert the input color (typically RGB) into the printer's output color mode, which is user selectable via the Ink Type setting. Grayscale: this setting will cause a color image to print in various shades of gray, although the printer may use mixtures of color ink to produce the gray shades. CMYK: the driver will attempt to translate an input CMYK file directly to CMYK output on the printer. Media Type Most inkjets support printing to a wide variety of media, such as plain paper, photo-quality inkjet paper, glossy paper, and plastic transparencies, just to name a few, and the surface characteristics of these differing media types vary widely. Producing high quality printed output on each surface requires printing with a specific density of ink. The Media Type setting affects the density of ink deposited by the printer. Each setting is optimized for the specific combination of printer and media type, and the available choices will vary according to printer model. Print Quality

18 Resolution Inkjet and laser printers produce images by "weaving" together very large numbers of very small dots, much in the same way that an artistic painter produces a painting by combining a large number of small brush strokes. When the tiny dots comprising an image are spaced very close together on a continuous visual surface, the human brain interprets the entire pattern as a single image, rather than a large collection of tiny dots. In general, smaller dots that are more tightly spaced together produce a more realistic effect. The Print Quality setting will determine the Automatic Resolution. You may, however, prefer to set the Resolution manually. With regard to printers, the term Resolution refers to the number of distinct dots that a printer can produce in a given dimension. For example, a resolution setting of 360 DPI means that the printer can produce 360 distinct Dots Per Inch of linear output. When a compound resolution is given, the first number indicates the horizontal resolution (the direction parallel to the printer's roller axis), while the second number indicates the vertical resolution. When the vertical resolution is not listed it should be assumed to be the same as the horizontal resolution. Most printers support printing at multiple resolutions, and many printers support various quality options at each resolution. The Gutenprint driver attempts to offer every resolution supported by the printer hardware. In general, the lowest quality resolution option is listed at the top of the selection menu. Moving down the list, each successive option provides increasingly higher output quality, as well as increasingly longer output time. Typically, resolutions below 300 DPI are useful only for high-speed draft printing, while resolutions above 720 will produce photo-quality output. High resolution output can require substantial driver processing time, and substantial amounts of memory and disk space; it's not uncommon for a full page, 1440x720 DPI image to require 100 MB of temporary storage! Shrink Shrink (default): the output is shrunk if necessary to fit the imageable area of the page. If a printer is capable of borderless operation but normal margins are selected, the output will be shrunk. This will print the entire page (nothing will be lost), but will not preserve the dimensions of the printout. For example, a line intended to be 10 cm long may print smaller than that. Crop: the output is cropped if necessary to fit the imageable area of the page. The dimensions of the page will be preserved (a line intended to be 10 cm long will print out exactly 10 cm), but the edges of the output may be truncated (cropped).

19 Expand: the output is expanded to fit the maximum possible imageable area of the page. When selected on printers capable of full bleed output, in conjunction with any other necessary options, the output will be expanded to match the maximum page dimension. The dimensions of the page will be expanded if necessary beyond the page size; a line intended to be 10 cm long may print longer than that. Image Type Image Type is usually found under Feature Set: Output Control Common or Output Common 2. Mixed Text and Graphics: Optimize the output for printing a mixture of text and graphics. Text: Optimizes the output for printing black text with no graphics. This option results in crisp output and is very fast, but will yield very poor results with any color or grayscale graphics. Line Art: This setting tells the printer driver to generate color quickly. The color is bold and bright, but color accuracy is not very good. There may also be some unexpectedly sharp transitions in colors. This mode is acceptable for printing text with small amounts of color, and may be acceptable for presentation graphics. Photograph: This mode produces the most accurate colors and tonalities at a greater cost in performance. This is the mode to use when printing high quality photographs or other high quality images. Dither Algorithm Dither Algorithm is typically located under the Feature Set: Output Control Extra 1 2. Adaptive Hybrid: the default dithering algorithm, it produces the highest quality for most types of output. When using this algorithm the driver analyzes the entire image and selectively switches between ordered dithering and Hybrid Floyd-Steinberg (in dark regions), depending upon the image characteristics.

20 Ordered: a pure ordered dither that generally yields excellent quality for simple black and white or four-color printers that lack advanced features such as variable drop size or drop modulation. Ordered is not optimized for printing text or very fine details (certain kinds of line art), particularly at high resolutions, and it is not recommended for use with six-color printers if high quality output is desired. Ordered is less processor intensive than Adaptive Hybrid. Fast: a pure ordered dither with a very simple black-to-color transfer model. It is substantially less processor intensive than Ordered, but for most printers the output quality is generally much worse, with the exception being simple four color printers, three color printers (CMY), and monochrome laser printers. Very Fast: similar to Fast, but with a very simple dither matrix that produces a strong diagonal pattern effect, which may be useful for some purposes. For pure black and white images dominated by horizontal and vertical lines, and for most types of output on monochrome laser printers, this algorithm may actually yield the best results. For most other cases, this algorithm will produce low quality output. Hybrid Floyd-Steinberg: a modified Floyd-Steinberg error diffusion algorithm. This algorithm is slow and generally produces the worst results; its use is not recommended for any purpose! Error diffusion algorithms can render very fine detail, and generally perform very well at high densities, but tend to produce noticeable artifacts in pale image regions. Additionally, pale image areas immediately adjacent to white must accumulate sufficient error before any dots are printed. This effect, often called waterfalling or tearing, produces a jagged edge. Eventone: an advanced error diffusion algorithm that produces extremely smooth, uniform regions of solid color, and extremely crisp fine black lines. At very high resolutions, the smoothness of this algorithm is superior to Adaptive Hybrid, particularly on six color printers. This algorithm currently exhibits slight waterfalling in very pale regions, some noise and artifacts in the midtones, and may produce a sheen effect in very dark regions. Eventone is the most processor intensive algorithm, but in many cases it produces the best results, and is recommended for the highest quality photo printing. This algorithm is experimental and may change. Brightness, Contrast, Saturation, Density, and other fine tuning of color and general output are found under the other various Feature Sets. The scope of all the adjustments available is beyond this document. Users are encouraged to explore the other options in conjunction with in conjunction with the companion document Gutenprint User Manual.pdf also included on this disk image. All trademarks, registered trademarks or service marks mentioned or displayed in this document belong to their respective holders.