Mac OS X Unleashed

By John Ray and William C. Ray

• Table of Contents
  • Copyright
  • About the Author
  • Acknowledgments
  • Tell Us What You Think!
  • Introduction
  • Part I: Introduction to Mac OS X
  • Chapter 1. Mac OS X Component Architecture
  • Chapter 2. Installing Mac OS X
  • Chapter 3. Mac OS X Basics
  • Chapter 4. The Finder: Working with Files and Applications
  • Chapter 5. Running Classic Mac OS Applications
  • Part II: Inside Mac OS X
  • Chapter 6. Native Utilities and Applications
  • Chapter 7. Internet Communications
  • Chapter 8. Installing Third-Party Applications
  • Part III: User-Level OS X Configuration
  • Chapter 9. Network Setup
  • Chapter 10. Printer and Font Management
    • Print Center
    • Printing
    • Managing Fonts
    • Font Web Sites
    • Summary
  • Chapter 11. Additional System Components
  • Part IV: Introduction to BSD Applications
  • Chapter 12. Introducing the BSD Subsystem
  • Chapter 13. Common Unix Shell Commands: File Operations
  • Part V: Advanced Command-Line Concepts
  • Chapter 14. Advanced Shell Concepts and Commands
  • Chapter 15. Command-Line Applications and Application Suites
  • Chapter 16. Command-Line Software Installation
  • Chapter 17. Troubleshooting Software Installs, and Compiling and Debugging Manually
  • Chapter 18. Advanced Unix Shell Use: Configuration and Programming (Shell Scripting)
  • Part VI: Server/Network Administration
  • Chapter 19. X Window System Applications
  • Chapter 20. Command-Line Configuration and Administration
  • Chapter 21. AppleScript
  • Chapter 22. Perl Scripting and SQL Connectivity
  • Chapter 23. File and Resource Sharing with NetInfo
  • Chapter 24. User Management and Machine Clustering
  • Chapter 25. FTP Serving
  • Chapter 26. Remote Access and Administration
  • Chapter 27. Web Serving
  • Part VII: Server Health
  • Chapter 28. Web Programming
  • Chapter 29. Creating a Mail Server
  • Chapter 30. Accessing and Serving a Windows Network
  • Chapter 31. Server Security and Advanced Network Configuration
  • Chapter 32. System Maintenance
  • Appendix A. Command-Line Reference
  • Appendix B. Administration Reference

Print Center

OS X (as of this writing) does not support Mac OS–style desktop printers. Additionally, the familiar Chooser is not a part of OS X. Instead, the heart of the OS X GUI environment printing system is the Print Center. The Print Center is the utility used for adding and deleting printers, setting the default printer, and interacting with the queues. The Print Center combines the printer tasks it once took both the Chooser and a desktop printer to accomplish. The rest of the familiar printing activities are available under the File menu of each application. The Print Center is located in /Applications/Utilities.

Note that just adding a printer in the Print Center is not sufficient to be able to print directly from the command line. In Chapter 23, "File and Resource Sharing," we will look at an example of adding a printer that we can use directly at the command line. However, adding a printer to the Print Center is sufficient to be able to print from the terminal application, as you would any other typical OS X application.

Local USB Printer

Because the new Macintosh hardware comes with USB ports, a local USB printer is assumed to be the default printer. OS X comes with some third-party USB printer drivers. If the drivers that come with OS X work with your printer, you should be ready to print.

When you open the Print Center, if no Printer List appears under the Printers menu, you can select View Printer List to check for your USB printer. If you still don't see your printer listed, if it is listed as unsupported, or if you can't find your local printer, check the software CD that came with your printer for OS X drivers. If it does not have any, check the manufacturer's Web site for the latest drivers and instructions. After the drivers are properly installed, your local USB printer should be available for printing. Select the USB connection and click Add Printer. Your USB printer then appears in the Printer List. At this time, OS X does not enable you to share your USB printer.

Network Printers

If you do not have a local USB printer, or if there are also network printers available, you might want to add a network printer to your Printer List.

To add a network printer to your system:

1. Select Add Printer under the Printers menu, or click the Add Printer directly from the Printer List.
2. Select the connection type. Available connection types for network printers include LPR Printers using IP and AppleTalk. LPR printers are printers shared using a traditional Unix printer-sharing scheme. The Print Center can provide connectivity for the GUI side of OS X to this well-established printing resource. In Chapter 23, we will look at adding a network printer via the Directory Services connection, for supporting printing from the command line.

Figure 10.1 shows the LPR Printers using IP window. In the window you specify

Figure 10.1 Fill in information at the LPR Printer's Address using IP window to select that connection type.

• The IP address or name of the printer or host.
• The queue. The default is to use the default printer queue. An alternate queue name can be specified instead.
• The printer model. Here you can select a specific LaserWriter model, a generic PostScript printer, or a specific PPD for your printer model.

Selecting an AppleTalk printer should be much like selecting an AppleTalk printer in the Chooser. You should see a selection of familiar AppleTalk printers. Make sure that you have turned on AppleTalk in the Network pane.

1. Click Add. The printer should now be listed in the Printer List.

Examining Printers

The Printer List in the Print Center is the place to examine the printers. Each entry in the Printer List lists the printer name, the kind of printer, and its status, if appropriate. Figure 10.2 shows a sample Printer List. In this Printer List, three printers are shown. Two are LaserWriters connected via AppleTalk. One of the LaserWriters is currently printing, according to the status. A third printer, named lp, is a remote PostScript printer served by another Unix host. The Printer List describes lp as a NetInfo host. This means that the NetInfo database contains information about this printer. The NetInfo database, which we will discuss in detail in Chapter 23, is a hierarchical database that stores information on your machine's configuration and resources.

Figure 10.2 This Printer List shows three printers.

Printer lp has a blue dot beside it, denoting that it is the default printer. Each time you add a printer, the newly added one automatically becomes the default. To make a specific printer your default, select the printer in the Printer List, and then choose Make Default under the Printers menu. To delete a printer, select it in the Printer List and click Delete.

To see a printer's queue, select Show Queue under the Printers menu. Figure 10.3 shows a sample print queue that has experienced an error, according to the status entry. You could either delete the job, or retry it by selecting the print job and clicking the appropriate button.

Figure 10.3 The print queue for printer jiji shows that current print job has encountered an error. You could choose to delete the job or retry it.

When a print job is proceeding normally, the Retry button becomes a Resume button, making the accessible buttons in the status window Delete, Hold, and Resume. While a successful job is printing, the status bar, which is grayed in Figure 10.3, is blue and alternately flashes Processing job and Preparing data for the duration of the print time. The buttons at the bottom of the status window are grayed out while the print job is processing, unless you select the print job. A sample status window for a normal print job is shown in Figure 10.4. The status entry for a printer that is printing becomes Printing, and during this time the Print Center appears in the Dock, where you could also click to get this information. In some versions of OS X, the Print Center icon shows pages remaining to be printed, and has a pop-up menu with queues and active/waiting jobs.

Figure 10.4 The print queue for printer jiji shows that the current print job is proceeding normally.

Under the Queue menu, you can choose to stop a queue. When you do that, the status entry for the printer in the Printer List reflects that the queue has stopped by listing the status as Stopped. After you have stopped a queue, the option under the Queue menu becomes Start Queue. Under the Queue menu, you can also Hold, Resume, or Delete a print job.

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