Online Demo -- Manage Mac Printing       

 

To manage and track Mac printing, the Mac computer must print to the shared printer on any Windows computer. If the printer is not shared on any Windows computer, you can share the printer on the Windows computer that has Print Job Manager installed.

To set up the PC, share the printer on the network and then connect to the printer from the MAC, follow the steps below for the PC and the MAC.

First, Enable the LDP Print Service using the following steps:

1.      Click Start, and click Control panel

2.      Click Programs and then click Programs and Features

3.      Click Turn Windows Features on or off

4.      Click to expand Print and Document Services

5.      Check the box for LDP Print Services

6.      Click OK and close the Programs and Features window

 Next, share the Windows printer on the network using the following steps:

1.      Click Start, type Devices and Printers in the Search text box

2.      Click Devices and Printers from the list above

3.      Right-click on the printer to be shared and click Printer properties

4.      Click the Sharing tab and click Change Sharing Options

5.      Check the box to Share this printer

6.      Set the name for the share 

(Tip: use a share name with no spaces, Example: Windows_HP_Printer)

7.      Click OK and then close the Properties and Devices and Printers Windows


Step 2. On the Mac

The last step, connect the printer to the MAC using the following steps:

1. Launch System Preferences from menu.

2. Click the ‘Print & Fax’ icon in the System Preferences window.


3. The Print & Fax window will display a list of currently configured printers and faxes that your Mac can use.

4. Click the plus (+) sign, located just below the list of installed printers.

5. The printer browser window will appear.

6. Click the ‘Windows’ toolbar icon.

7. Click the workgroup name in the first column of the three-pane printer browser window.

8. Click the computer name of the Windows machine that has the shared printer connected to it.

9. You may be asked to enter a user name and password for the computer you selected in the step above.

10. Select the printer you configured for sharing from the list of printers in the third column of the three-pane window.


11. From the Print Using dropdown menu, select the driver that the printer needs. The Generic PostScript Printer driver will work for almost all PostScript printers, but if you have a specific driver for the printer, click ‘Select a driver to use’ in the dropdown menu, and select the driver.

12. Click the ‘Add’ button.

13. Use the Default Printer dropdown menu to set the printer you want to use most often. The Print & Fax preferences pane tends to set the most recently added printer as the default, but you can easily change that by selecting a different printer.

Common Issue: Mac OS X Cannot locate a shared Windows printer

Summary: In Mac OS X 10.3 and later, Printer Setup Utility allows you to add a printer that's being shared by a Microsoft Windows PC. However, Printer Setup Utility may not see some shared Windows printers.

Here are some reasons why and what you can do about it.

The printer name contains more than 12 characters

Only printer share names that contain 12 characters or less will be displayed in Printer Setup Utility when browsing for a Windows printer.

Incorrect Windows username or password when adding a Windows printer

Printer Setup Utility will prompt you for a username and password when adding a shared Windows printer. These fields can be left blank if the computer sharing the printer is set up to allow guest users to see and print to the shared printer.

If the computer that's sharing the printer is set up so that only specific users can see the printer, the printer list will be blank if the wrong user (or no user) is entered. Contact the administrator of the computer sharing the printer to determine what username and password to use.

The computer sharing the printer is on a different subnet

Printers shared by Windows PCs that are on a different subnet than your Mac will not be listed.

The shared printer's comment contains special characters

If one of the shared Windows printers has a Return character (which isn't displayed) at the end of its comment (description), any printers that should appear after it will not be displayed. To resolve this, go to the computer that's sharing the printer and remove any Return characters (or other special characters) from the printer's comment.

If you just want to track the Mac printing, Print Job Agent for Mac is not required to be installed on Mac clients. Skip the following Step 3.

Step 3.  Print Job Agent for Mac provides the following additional features:

1. Enables users to confirm or cancel the print jobs in the print notification popup before the print jobs print.

2. Enables users to enter user ID and (or) PIN before the print jobs print.

3. Enables users to enter or select a client billing code/job code/project code before the print jobs print.

 Mac OS X/Classic:  PrintJobAgent.app.tar and tracker_ip.ini

1.      Open tracker_ip.ini, Enter the computer name or the IP Address of the computer (For example 192.168.0.10) that has Print Job Manager installed.

2.      Copy PrintJobAgent.app.tar and tracker_ip.ini to Mac computer.

3.      Double-click PrintJobAgent to run it. If it doesn’t run, try a different agent.

4.      You can make agent run automatically when Mac machine starts up:

Option 1:

Step 1: Find the PrintJobAgent application icon and click on it.

Step 2: Click on the File menu and select Make Alias. Drag the alias to the desktop where you can get at it.

Step 3: Double-click to open the System Folder and locate the Startup Items folder.

Step 4: Drop the alias into the Startup Items folder. The next time you start up your Mac, the application will launch.

Option 2:

Go into the system preferences - accounts - login items, you can adjust what programs load and don't load at sign in.

 

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