Print from Windows 7 to a Mac Shared Printer

I recently upgraded my wife’s laptop from Windows Vista to Windows 7 Home Premium. (The laptop manufacturer sent us a free upgrade coupon since we purchased it not too long before Windows 7 was released.) This morning she discovered that she can’t print to the Canon MP830 that is shared from the G5 Mac (running Mac OS X 10.5.8) in our living room. In Vista, I had it working via Bonjour. I’ve now learned a little too late that Bonjour doesn’t work in Windows 7. (see UPDATE) I googled for a solution, but all I was able to find was a bunch of other people complaining about the same thing: printing from Windows 7 to a printer shared from Mac OS X wasn’t working as it had been in Windows XP or Vista.

Not to worry, though. After about 30 minutes of trying various solutions and just poking around in Windows 7, I found that the solution is pretty simple. The following procedure assumes you already have Printer Sharing enabled on your Mac.

I. Get your printer’s LPR Queue Name from CUPS admin

  1. On your Mac, open a browser and go to http://127.0.0.1:631 — the CUPS admin page.
  2. Click the Printers tab and look at the list of printers.
  3. If you’re using Snow Leopard, you’ll see a Queue Name column. Take note of the Queue Name for the printer you want to access from Windows 7. If you’re using Leopard or earlier, the Queue Name is the reddish link above a horizontal black line. (See pic below.) There are no spaces allowed in queue names, so if your printer shows up as Canon MP830 in the Print & Fax pref pane in System Preferences, the queue name will likely be Canon_MP830.

II. Enable LPR Port Monitor in Windows 7

  1. On your Windows 7 computer, go to your Control Panel and select the Programs item.
  2. Under the Programs and Features section, click Turn Windows features on or off.
  3. Expand the Print and Document Services item and then enable the LPR Port Monitor item.
  4. Click OK and wait for the change to be implemented. You should not need to reboot.

III. Add a new LPR printer

  1. Click the Start menu and select Devices and Printers.
  2. Click Add a printer in the toolbar.
  3. Select Add a local printer.
  4. Select Create a new port and then select LPR Port from the menu. Click Next.
  5. Type the name or IP address of your Mac in the first field and then enter the Queue Name you got in step I above in the second field. Click OK.
  6. The computer will attempt to verify the destination. If Printer Sharing is enabled on your Mac and you entered the info correctly, then you should not get any errors. If you see the following error, verify the settings on your Mac.
  7. You should now see the Install the print driver screen. Choose a postscript printer driver, regardless of the kind of printer you are connecting to. This is very important. You do not need to pick a matching driver for your device. The only consideration is whether to use a color driver or a b&w driver. (I’m using an HP Color LaserJet 3000 PS driver and it works well.) When you’ve selected a driver, click Next.
  8. Name your printer and click Next. The printer will now be installed.
  9. Select Do not share this printer and click Next.
  10. If you want this printer to be the default, check Set as default printer. Now click Print a test page.

Success?

If everything worked, you should have in your hands a familiar windows printer test page. If you still can’t get anything to print, please let me know about it in the comments.

Update: Bonjour Print Services for Windows

If the above method does not work for you, you should install Bonjour Print Services for Windows.

233 thoughts on “Print from Windows 7 to a Mac Shared Printer”

  1. We got the exact error message you described in step 6. The Windows 7 machine can’t print to a Canon iP4200 attached via USB to a new Mac Mini with Snow Leopard. Do we need to specify a certain port? Do we need to add drivers to the PC? Could CUPS be used? Perhaps dumb questions, but we can’t get it to go. Thanks for your post. Glad yours is working.

    • Thank you for these great instructions but I am having trouble printing QuickBooks for Windows files through my Mac networked printer. I use a Windows 7 laptop for my QuickBooks Windows programs. I can print Word and Excel files from the laptop through my MAC network but for some reason QuickBook files will not print. Any ideas?

      • I’m not familiar with QuickBooks. I assume you’ve ensured that the correct printer is selected already? If QuickBooks allows you to export in another file format, try that and then print the exported file.

        • I tried that – saving as pdf and Adobe will not print either. For some reason Word and Excel print fine. Will give Intuit a call then on Monday to see if they have a work around. Thank you!

    • Disable firewall and install bonjour on windows, I spent hours searching for solution and everywhere the same thing, same advices, then I though firewall and bang! Straight away. Later just add Bonjour to firewall and that’s it. Works with firewall on so don’t need to worry.

    • I tried this with Win7 starter pack. It does not have the LPR Port Monitor option, just Windows Fax and Scan. Does that effectively rule out this option?

      Regards Dom

  2. Thanks, yes to both questions. We followed your instructions to the letter but can’t get past step 6. For what it’s work, we’re connected thru a 2Wire router.

    • Pat, I’m not sure what the issue could be. What version of Windows 7 are you using? Also, have you tried ignoring the error and continuing despite it?

  3. I tried to do this, but do not have a lpr port in my print services and documents window. Any thoughts??

          • I have an Asus 1005ha netbook running Windows 7 starter that connects fine to my airport express network. The netbook finds my Canon iP5000 printer which is connected to my imac with a usb. The imac connects wirelessly to my network. I have updated the driver which shows up, but I can not print. I have tried running the printer through Bonjour for Windows but can not complete the process due to a message of “You do not have sufficient access to your computer to connect to the selected printer.”

            Any help you can give me would be appreciated.

            • I have the same ASUS1005 netbook. I used to be able to print on my brother 495CW wirelessly. All of a sudden I was only able to print with USB. It keeps saying that my printer is off line. Today I installed a HP3556 but the ASUS cannot find that either. Any suggestions?

  4. We’ve got Windows 7 Professional and still no luck. I can add the LPR port from windows, but the test page does not print. If I look at the network, I can see the Mac Mini and the printer, but when I try to add the printer, it asks for a driver. So we plugged the Win PC directly to the printer to get Windows UPdate to load the driver. But after getting the driver, when trying to add the printer, it still won’t print. Lastly, on a scan of the network, the Mac Mini has AFP, SMB, VNC , IPP and netbios-ss ports open.
    ANy other tips are most appreciated. This is so frustrating.

    • Try going to the CUPS web interface Administration tab (http://127.0.0.1:631/admin/) and checking the “Allow printing from the Internet” option under the Server section. “Share printers connected to this system” should already be checked. Here’s a pic of the settings:

      • When we check “allow printing” and then click change settings it asks for a user name and password. What would that be?

      • Thank you for this excellent article. I’ve been looking for this all over web.

        For anyone who manages to complete all the steps (including enabling internet printing from CUPS) but the test page still won’t print. Here’s what I did to get it working (may not be feasible for all scenarios).

        Solution.
        Make sure that your Mac has a matching local account as your PC.
        In my case my laptop was joined to a domain so I used my domain UserName (excluding the DomainName).

        Symptom
        in CUPS admin when I click “View Error Log” I noticed the following error
        “Returning IPP client-error-not-authorized for Create-Job (ipp://localhost/printers/HP_PHOTOSMART_C4400_SERIES) from localhost”.

        This post gave me the hint http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=11502995

        Hope this helps someone

      • I had the same issue but when I check the allow printing box and then click change settings it reverts back to being unchecked. I feel like this is the last thing standing in my way.

      • I get this far, but when I go to change settings, it reverts back to how it was (unchecked). I do not get asked for a login/pass.

        I’m running 10.5.8 on my iMac and Windows 7 Ultimate on my netbook.

  5. I tried everything with Bonjour and a new Windows 7 machine but nothing worked until I ran across your article. It worked like a charm. I’m now printing successfully to the Brother laser and the Epson connected to my Mac.

    Thank you very much!!

  6. I have been searching for a solutions for weeks and your page came up on google today and the instructions worked perfectly! Many Thanks!

  7. For the record, this technique worked flawlessly with Vista, too. I had pulled out about all my hair trying to get Bonjour to work in my wife’s Vista brick, all to no avail. Enabling the LPR in Vista and using the CUPS printer name, AND using the same color post script printer driver mentioned above, has it working flawlessly.

    Many thanks!

  9. I have tried this without success. A couple of questions – I am trying to do this with the printer attached to a Time Machine using the IP address of the Time Machine. Is that correct? Also, while this ight be a stupid question, how do I find the IP address of my Mac? Last, I downloaded and tried Bonjour 1.06, still no success. Any ideas?

    • Bonjour is the only way I know of to printer to a printer attached to a Time Capsule. I assume you’ve already tried uninstalling and reinstalling Bonjour?

  11. I attempted all of the steps you gave to print wirelessly from my Windows 7 Home Premium notebook to my iMac with an HP Officejet 5600 and cannot succeed. I downloaded Bonjour as a last resort and Bonjour says i do not have sufficient access to my computer to connect to the selected printer. Any ideas.

  12. Yes I am able to ping the iMac. All the steps work up to the “Print Test Page” and there is no response. Although if you go into the printed documents list on the iMac it lists a “Test Page” print???

  13. I was able to locate a driver for an HP Color Laserjet 2800 PS. Used those drivers to install with your steps above and it worked perfectly. Macguy you are a genius!!! And very patient with a tech idiot such as myself. Thank you!

  14. i check allow printing from internet but i cant save the settings…. i dont know the password…. i did a quick google… and some said username is root and password is root…. but they dont work for me…. please help…

    • Use the same login and password you use when you’re installing software on your Mac. You need root privileges here, not necessarily the actual root account.

      • thank you i figured that part out but i cant get passed step six… i keep getting the error message…. i dont know if im doing anything wrong on the mac side… can you help me with that..

  15. yes… i get numbers back… i saw this thing on Cups. 1.4.2 open source do i have to compile that… if so i give up on this i have no clue on c++ and stuff… all i did on my imac was install the printer. and enable it to share via printer settings and sharing settings under system preference.

    • No need to compile anything. The only thing you need to check CUPS for is to get your printer’s queue name. If you’re using the correct ip and queue name, then you should not be getting an error. What OS version is on your Mac and PC?

  16. I recently obtained a new Windows computer that is running Windows Home Premium. A Macintosh G4 Quicksilver is serving as the host for three USB shared printers. I am able to get through step 10 and select “Print test page” but nothing happens. I checked the print queues on the Windows computer and it says that an error occurred.
    I installed Bonjour 1.06, rebooted the Windows computer, and the same thing happened.
    I was using the HP Color Laserjet 2800 PS driver.

      • The G4 Quicksilver to which the printers are connected is using OS 10.5.8. The computer has 1.5 GB RAM and the processor was upgraded to a 1.47 GHz unit. I have other Macintosh computers connected to the router either via ethernet or wirelessly that print to the three printers that are connected to the G4.

        • It’s strange you didn’t get errors at step 6 but can’t print. Out of curiosity, what kind of printers are attached to your Mac?

          Since you say you installed Bonjour, have you tried adding a printer using the Bonjour Printer Wizard?

          • HP LaserJet 1012
            HP Photosmart 7760 inkjet
            Canon Pixma MP450 inkjet

            I have not tried adding a printer using the Bonjour Printer Wizard (not quite sure how I would do that).

  17. I tried using the Bonjour Printer Wizard and receive an error message: “ You do not have sufficient access to your computer to connect to the selected printer.”

    When I attempt to use printers that I have set up per the method described on the web page the following error message appears in the Status field of the printer queue: “Printer Busy or Error.”

    The router to which the G4 is connected is configured to provide dynamic IP addresses to the computers so I “reserved” the IP address for the G4.

  19. You are a GENIUS!!! I have been trying to connect my PC with Windows 7 to my Mac-connected printer all afternoon and this is the only thing that has worked!

    Thank you for saving my sanity.

  20. You solution was the first that got me anywhere. Bonjour did not work. It would find and install the printer, but would not actually print. Same thing when adding as a network printer (http://:631/printers/queue_name).

    With your method, it actually started printing. Problem was that it printed blank white sheets. I’m not out of ink, I can print from the Mac. I figured it must be the driver.

    Deleted the printer and tried again with a new PS driver (the port will still exist, so that saves some steps), but I have yet to find a driver that will work. Using the actual driver for the printer (Canon Pixma iP700) won’t do anything, not even print blank pages. I see no PS drivers under the Canon category. I tried HP and Lexmark PS drivers. They’ll start printing but it will be blank pages.

    The generic/text only printer was the only I tried that didn’t shoot blanks, but it is useless as it will print no formatting at all.

      • I have the exact same issue with the iP1700. Prints fine from iMac running OSX (Leopard) to which it is connected, but it “prints” out blank pages when printing from my Windows 7 machine. CUPS job list shows it as ‘complete’.

        I will repost if I come upon a solution.

        • I am having a similar problem, windows 7 printing to a Canon MG5100 which is connected to a Mac running OSX (Leopard). Set it up using a LPR Port and all that as suggested in the article.
          You ever manage to sort it out?

          • Same boat. Windows 7 client, Mac running OS X 10.6 driving a Canon MP450. The printer driver on the Windows 7 machine is the HP Color 2800 Laserjet PS one. Anyone?

            • OK I fixed the blank-page problem by updating the printer drivers on the Mac. Back in business!

  21. I can make it thru the entire setup above but when I try to print, I get a “Printer Busy or Error” message in the print que on the Windows 7 box. The Canon MP530 printer is connected via USB to my iMac running Snow Leopard.

    I am on OSX 10.6.2, and just updated my Canon MP530 drivers using Software update. I added the ‘Allow internet printing’ option using CUPS as suggested above. The Windows laptop is running Windows 7 Home Premium.

    I’ve tried a couple of different postscript printers on the Windows 7 side, the HP 2800 PS and the Lexmark C936PS. I also just for the heck of it tried the Canon MP530, which of course didn’t work as it’s not a PS driver.

    I’ve also tried Bonjour on Windows 7 – it can see the printer, but I get the dreaded “ You do not have sufficient access to your computer to connect to the selected printer” message at the end of the printer setup.

    At one point, the Canon MP530 printer was installed on the Windows 7 box, but I deleted it (prior to attempting your instructions) via suggestions in another forum talking about the Bonjour error message listed above.

    Both the PC and the iMac have been restarted multiple times.

    (Note: I originally got stuck on Step 6, but I had Stealth Mode enabled on the OSX firewall. Once I turned it off, I was able to complete the other steps)

    Thanks, btw for posting this – even if it doesn’t work out for me, it’s gotten me further than anything else so far.

    • Do you have any custom firewall or security software installed on your Windows computer? It’s strange how this solution works right away for some people (me included) and not for others. There’s got to be something different about your setup.

      • AVG Free, windows firewall. I got the laptop at Best Buy, have to check if they did anything screwy when setting it up. I’ll turn it all off and give it a try.

  22. I try evry thing but it want work. no eror or somthing but i can print it say 1 document to print ant than nothing and say 0 documents to print

    And at last The bonjour printer wont deleted from my system.

    • Sorry i it works i have a other printer driver install.
      But howe can i delete the printer that is adit with bonjour?

        • Tanks if i know this early my wife wasnt angry for the hours beheand the laptop instad do the thinks like put the trash outsite. Thanks

        • I tried using the browser then Print etc. and then I tried doing it in Word (as I couldn’t see “notepad”), neither worked as right-click did nothing.

          I found Notepad – “print” etc and it worked.

  23. Thanks for the post, But im having problems.

    I get the error message that you posted in step 6. Printer sharing is enabled on the Mac, and i have the correct que name. Im not sure if im using the correct i.p address or name of the computer however. The name i get on my mac looks like ‘andy-sddsfsds-imac.local’. That is the name that im currently using. However, i have tryed the I.P address of my wireless network, but i also got the error message in step 6. I have also tryed an I.P address from whatsmyip.com. This is completely different to my network i.p address. I am using the HP 2800 PS driver as well. I then goto print a test page and nothing happens. I get just an an ! in a yellow triangle on my devices and printers screen.

    Any suggestions?

    Thanks alot, much appreciated.

  25. Hi There, Thanks for taking the time to help all us distressed Mac users ;-)

    I have a problem though.

    I have followed your instructions to the letter and it all went perfectly until I print the test page from the PC. The page doesn’t print out but it shows up in the”completed” window of the Mac print queue. I’ve checked the CUPS page for the Mac installed printer which says:
    RIP_X_Stylus_Photo_1390-3017 Test Page GDS2 284k aborted Restart Job

    RIP_X_Stylus_Photo_1390 is the printer on the Mac, GDS2 is the PC name.
    Any ideas anyone?

    • I’m not sure what could be wrong. I’ve already covered most of the possible problems in my responses to comments here. Is your Epson connected via FireWire or USB?

  26. Unfortunately I have no luck so far, been trying for 3 days, you have easy to follow instructions, thank you.

    My printer is a HP Photosmart C4400 series, printer sharing is turned on in Macbook 10.6.2 and I followed instructions for Windows 7 Premium, firewall is good as well. I get step 6 error, tried to ping Mac from W7 and it does ping, tried other drivers without success. I even gave my Mac a different IP – thought that would fix it but no luck there too. When I get to “Print Test Page” it sends to printer, after a few seconds it says printer busy or error. As for Bonjour 1.0.6 it sees the printer fine; however, when I finish it says I don’t have access to go forward… really thought that would work.

    Do you have any idea what could be the problem?

    Thank you for your time

    • You might try uninstalling Bonjour. Other than that, I’m not sure what’s preventing this from working other than what I’ve already said to others in the comments.

  27. PERFECT!!!
    spent 5 hours trying to print to a Canon MP600 attached to my iMac. Was ready to send back the computer and get a Macbook [I know, I know… but 6th grade girls don’t get a new $1000 Macbook to do homework at the gym]. Saw your post and was working in 5 minutes.
    Don’t yet understand the postscript part.

  28. I have the same problem as Marvo. CUPS shows that my print jobs are completed, but nothing came off the printer! All the install steps at top of thread work, I can ping the MAC from the windows machine, and I can print locally from the mac with no problem, refreshing he jobs completed page in CUPs shows the page I’ve just printed from the MAC. I guess the driver thinks it’s sending the job to the printer, but it’s going somewhere else?

  29. I learned the hard way too, Bonjour does not work – yet – on Windows 7. Found this post, followed the manual ( I used the Color Laserjet 2800 PS driver on Windows 7 side (build in) while printing to a Photosmart 7600 series connected to a Mac. But still no prints !!
    –> checked the firewall settings on my Mac, set it open and it works fine now!!
    Thanks for this post.

  30. I’ve the same problem as David Perry!!!
    Its says complete in the cups but it’s not printing
    How to check the firewall on the Imac??

    (sorry for my bad englis)

    • To check your firewall settings, go to System Preferences, type “firewall” in the search box, then select the result that says “Turn firewall on or off”. That will take you to the right place.

    • Now working!! I started again, deleted all previosu attempts and went to add a network printer, and did the search. It found my MAC and the Canon printer , however, when I selected the printer and it asked for a driver, I went looking for a generic postcript driver in the Microsoft menu instead of the correct Canon driver, there wasn’t one listed, so I picked “MS Publisher Color Printer” and now it’s working. Why, who knows? Will it keep working? Fingers crossed…….

  31. I have turn the firewall off but it isn’t working
    same problem he say complete but he is not printing

  32. Very clear instructions, thank you. However, in point 7 you recommend choosing a Postscript printer driver. I simply found the nearest driver name to my printer (although the exact one was not listed) – was it a postscript printer? Who knows? I continued to follow the instructions and got that LPR Port configuration warning, but struggled on, knowing my settings were correct. No success, unfortunately.

    • You must use a driver that is postscript for this to work. Don’t worry. When the print file gets to your Mac’s printer queue, it will use the driver you have set up there to print it.

  33. Perfect Thank You Ive been trying to print like this for a long time couldn’t get it to work until I read this article just make sure to use the PostScript Drivers.

  34. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you! Creating the LPR port and adding a PS printer did the trick! Finally. Your instructions are clear very easy to follow.

  35. Thanks I followed your steps and got immediate success, a printed test page.

    Can you help with configuring Win7 to see my Imac (10.6.3). I can see the PC in finder on the mac, but I can’t see the mac on the PC

  36. thanks, works great! been trying to figure this out for months! i used the Color Laserjet 2800 PS driver for my canon mp830 printer, i’m running windows 7 64 bit & mac osx 10.4.11

  37. Thanks. This had been driving me batty.

    I’m running OSX 10.5.8 and have shared my HP OfficeJet 5500. I downloaded latest version of bonjour and installed on both my vista laptop and windows 7 desktop.

    The vista installation allowed me to print without a hitch. But the Windows 7 would be ok up to the point I had to print a test page.

    After reading this, I ran the bonjour print services wizard again, but this time, made sure I specified the LaserJet 2800 PS driver.

    Works like a charm!

  38. THANK YOU! MERCI! AMASEGANALHU! GRAZIE! GRACIAS! OBRIGADO! DANKE! This had me stumped for waaaay too long.

  39. Pingback: Printing on a Mac from Windows 7 « Net Gains ~

  40. Thanks so much! This worked like a charm! I spent way too much time trying other things before googling this page.

  42. This is helpful, I didn’t have luck with it directly (a firewall issue?) but using Bonjour I was able to configure w/o problem. The clue here was to use a postscript driver: Windows 7 didn’t have my printer’s driver, so I picked a postscript driver and that worked.
    So,,, download Bonjour from apple is still the easiest way.

  43. I went trhough all the steps and the new sony vaio laptop hung after step 8 “installing printers”. Have Windows 7 Home installed. Ran Windows 7 troubleshooting and it tells me to add printers to homegroup. It hung there too.

  44. Great instructions, unfortunately I can still not get my windows 7 machine to print. All of the steps you described above (very clear, thank you) worked but when I print on my windows 7 machine, I see the print job in the printer properties with status Spooling and the job goes no further. I see nothing on the print queue on my MAC. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

  45. It worked great for me. I used it on 3 Windows 7 machines. 1 Ultimate and 2 Professional. My MAC Mini has 4 gigs of Ram and 2 500 gig hard drives. A Brother Multifunction Printer.

  48. Hi, I’ve recently bought a 27″ iMac and I’m new to Apple. I have Windows 7 running thru Parallels 5 and I’m slowly moving everything over to Mac but it’s a big learning curve! I have an HP Photosmart C7280 printer which has worked wirelessly from both my Mac and Windows applications for several months. Recently, the printer stopped working from Windows but still works OK from the Mac applications. I’ve tried everything including downloading new software from the HP site and sometimes I can get it to work but ALWAYS after a day or two it stops working and I have to try playing around with set up and re installing the printer to try and get it working again. I’ve spent hours trying to get it sorted but no permanent solution has been found. Clearly something is not set up properly, either in the Mac or on the Windows 7 side. Any ideas about what do I need to do? It driving me crazy!! Thanks and best regards, Pete

    • I spoke a bit too soon, the setup appeared to work great, and when i print from the windows machine it all works, the job is created, and shortly afterward it is gone from the queue.

      Unfortunately when I go downstairs to pick up the printout, it is not there for me.

      Looking at the console on the iMac (10.6.4 ), it informs that i am Not allowed to print.
      I enabled the ‘Allow printing from the internet’, but with no result.

      Sep 26 21:41:41 KitchenImac org.cups.cups-lpd[2191]: launchproxy[2191]: /usr/libexec/cups/daemon/cups-lpd: Connection from: 192.168.15.6 on port: 721
      Sep 26 21:41:41 KitchenImac cups-lpd[2192]: Unable to create job – Not allowed to print.

      Any ideas ?

      • Colm, it sounds like there’s a misconfiguration in cups somewhere. Rather than hunting for it, I would reset the printing system on the Mac. This will return all printing system settings to defaults, but it will also remove your printer so you’ll have to re-add it. Easiest way to do the reset is from the Printers Sys Prefs. Just right click anywhere in the Printers list and select Reset Printing System….

        When re-adding the printer, if you give it the same name as before then you won’t have change anything on the Windows side.

  51. Thanks for the info. I didn’t get it to work this way. Bonjour was somewhat succcessfull on it’s own, with a samsung clp300 lazer, but I cannot print in colour through the network. Test page shows up in colour, but nothing else. Any thoughts?

  52. I’ve been having great trouble getting our new Win 7 Dell Inspiron to print over a wireless network to the shared Canon iP4300 on an iMac (USB) running MAC OS 10.5.8. These instructions worked for me. (On the router I set the iMac to always use the same IP address, thinking that would help.)

  53. I thought that I had followed all your instructions correctly but I still can not print on a Windows 7 PC to a printer that is connected to my Mac Time capsule. When I try & print from within the print window I can see the type of printer and the location that is given is theIP address for my Time Capsule but all that happens is that the document keeps getting added to the print queue. I deleted al the pending documents and then tried to reinstall as per your instruction but I now get the err message that LPR port has already been created. I would appreciate it if you could offer some suggestions. Regards Gary

  55. OK, I’ve used a lot of help from you setting up my network with windows, so here’s the story.

    -My printer is connected to my mac (works perfectly)

    -I set up a wireless network without internet connection between my mac and my windows (works fine)

    -I try to print from my windows and it goes through to printing queue and says completed, although nothing prints, try with mac and it works fine!

    I have windows home XP and OSX .5.8

    Could you help me please?

  56. Thanks for this article. After beating my head against Snow Leopard and Windows 7 Starter for two weeks, I finally found the two new hints that I needed to get things working:

    1) http://www.freedomit.co.nz/KB-Apple-OSX/cups-lpd-enabling-on-snow-leopard-106.html
    LPD isn’t enabled by default on Snow Leopard, so you have to run:

    cupsctl ‘BrowseLocalProtocols=”cups dnssd lpd”‘

    Maybe after this tip Bonjour would have worked for me, but I just plunged forward with the rest of what I found on the Interwebs:

    2) Windows 7 Starter does not come with a separate LPR Port Monitor: just set up a Standard Network Port, enter in the IP of your print server, let the autodetect hang for a good long time, and eventually it will give you the option of changing the port to an LPR port, as well as specifying the queue name.

    Sorry I don’t have a screenshot or references for that second tip. I don’t want to touch that Windows 7 box ever again!

    Best regards,
    Michael.

    • this tip is worthy of mentioning as an update to the post! Mavericks has only dnssd enabled by default and enabling lpd is a must!

  57. Hi Really useful article!
    It didn’t work at first..however discovering the CUPS interface (mentioned in one of the replies), and having the latest Bonjour software installed on the windows 7 laptop. The printer appeared in the Bonjour panel. So I was able to delete the printer created in your walkthrough.

    Thanks for this!!!

    rich

  58. Your are the man (the mac guy). My printing problems are solved by following this article.
    Thanks for providing this service.
    NC

  59. Following the instructions as written worked perfect using IMAC 10.4.11 with a Samsung SCX 4500 series printer. New Windows 7 (64) now prints wirelessly to this printer. Only small glitch was not entering the IP address of the Mac correctly on the first try. Thaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaanks! So glad to have googled into your site!

  60. Thank you so much for the help which worked perfectly, when I followed each step properly rather than thinking I knew better.
    Cheers, A

  61. Ps.
    Worked perfectly on Powermac G5 (10.4.11), wired to Canon iP4500 series printer, and wireless Acer Aspire 5734Z (windows 7). Used driver for HP Business Inkjet 3000 PS. Initially chose relevant driver for Canon printer but failed!

  62. Some of the clearest instructions for a tricky task I’ve ever read! A delight!

    Following them, I have indeed managed to install a Windows 7 printer
    that sends jobs to an Epson Firewire printer that is in fact plugged into a Mac
    (running 10.5.8) on the same network.

    B-U-T in the printer queue on the WIndows 7 machine, for each job the Status
    column says always “Printer Busy or Error”

    The queue also shows that each job was submitted by Owner (although I really
    do have a named account). Just in case, on the Mac I created a shared-file user
    called Owner… but that didn’t help.

    further suggestions would be most welcome

  63. Everything worked as your article instructed. Why does it only work with a PS driver? Why
    do you select “Do not share this printer” ? Neither of these things is intuitive to me….
    I have an HP 6122 printer usb connected to a G4 mac running OS 10.4 and an HP dm3-3012nr Notebook
    running 64-bit Windows 7

    • To be honest, I’m not sure why postscript drivers work best. That’s just the conclusion I reached after doing my own research and experimentation. I specified not to share the printer on the Windows side because it would just be re-sharing an already shared printer. You could, of course, try it if you wanted to.

      • I first tried the non-PS driver that HP said was most compatible with Windows 7.
        While it didn’t work, the print queue on the mac side said that it had printed the
        test page, but nothing came thru the printer. So, I accessed the printer thru
        NotePad and changed the driver to a PS one, and then it worked. Your comment
        about resharing a shared printer makes sense. Thanks!

  65. After I’ve desperately tried to get printing from Win7 -> ( iMac MAC Os X 10.4.11) on an HP 2410 photosmart to work, I came accross your article, Great, it worked !!

    However…., after removing Bonjour from the Win 7 system I was back to square one.
    Restoring the system, including Bonjour from from a Restore Point brought it all back.
    Did not realize that Bonjour is still needed (and still wonder why ?).
    Thanks, Pierre

  66. Thank you so much! This worked perfectly for me! I so appreciate your posting these instructions. I spent my entire spring break trying to figure this out. Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!

    Vic

  67. I have an HP Photosmart D110 USB’d to an iMac running 10.6.6. On the same network (workgroup “WORKGROUP,” both computers are wired) is a Dell Inspiron desktop running VISTA SP2.

    I have followed your instructions to the letter – but get the error pop-up in step 6. I tried continuing and completed the installation with the same print driver you used. The printer appears now on VISTA, but any document sent to it (including a test page) sits in the queue on VISTA with status “Printing….” and doesn’t print.

    I have verified the settings on the iMac, and the VISTA computer can see the Mac and its shares in its Network window. IP address of the Mac is correct, as is the HP Queue Name, viz., HP_Photosmart_D110_series.

    Any advice at this point would be more than appreciated.

    Allan
    “Stupidity is forever: ignorance can be fixed”

  69. Perfection!! well, my mac froze soon after configuring the printer in windows but after resetting it, the printing started :D .. I could not log in at the CUPS admin tab using my name and password though..

    Thanks!!

  70. Hi pmbuko,

    I have been solving a printing problem using your advice and I’d like to say thanks. Many thanks, really as I was up against a brick wall until I found your solution and, of course, I tried the “correct driver” until I understood the need for a postscript driver. Like a few other posters, I am a little puzzled as to why it is necessary for the procedure to work but work it does. So, again, many thanks,

    Alan

  71. pmbuko,

    It worked! I had a WinXP laptop printing flawlessly with my Canon printer on my iMac via AirPort Base network using Bonjour. But when I bought a new Win7 laptop (my wife needs PCs to do work files) I could not get Bonjour to work with Win7 printing to the iMac printer. I tried multiple fixes offered on the net and none worked until trying yours. I hope the Bonjour handshake can be fixed for Win7 and AirPort LAN but, for now, your fix is great. Thank you for sharing this online.

    Del

  72. Hi, I have been wrestling with the problem of printing from MAC to window 7 via parallels.
    and opened http://127.0.0.1:631 via Safari, but cannot see the CUPS admin page, and therefore do not see a list of printers. I would be greatful if anyone could help me.
    John

  73. Hi Everyone,
    I’m going to need a real guru to help me out here ;-) I have the “iProof PowerRIPX” postscript RIP running on the Mac. I heve been succesfully printing to this from the PC. My setup worked fine under OSX 10.4.11 on the Mac. Now I have upgraded to Snow Leopard (10.6.7) I can no longer print from the WIN7 PC to the RIP on the Mac.

    Now, when I ” Add the LPR compatible printer” address of server:… 192.168.2.100 printer queue name: RIPX, I get the error “The LPD server did not respond as expected…….” and I cannot print to the queue on the Mac – The file just sits in the queue on the PC saying “Printer busy or error”

    I tried booting back into my old OSX 10.4.11 installation and it works fine, so it’s not the PC. Mac static IP address and print queue details are the same on both OSX installations.

    What has changed in OSX 10.6.7 Snow Leopard that the LPR port configuration test command is not recognised or ignored or rejected? I really need a fix for this.

    Martyn

      • Bonjour does work, so anyone “normal” would be happy, BUT….

        I need a postscript printer on the PC using a specific PPD file to print to the postscript RIP on the Mac, hence the need for going the “LPR” printer route. With the print queue on the Mac running 10.6.7, the Win7Ultimate32bit PC just pops the error: “The LPD server did not respond as expected to a test command”… after trying to create the port. All the settings are correct because it works fine when I follow the same process after hooking up my old 10.4.11 disk and trying from that.

        What’s different in snow Leopard I want to know?

        Martyn

  74. Thank you! Worked like a charm, printing from my new Windows 7 laptop to my old PowerMac G4 print server. Windows 7 is pretty, but the devil is in the details when it comes to nuts and bolts stuff like networking and printing. Who would have thought it would be a “local printer”? Thanks so much for this.

  75. pmbuko, you have an impressive knowledge of these issues. I wonder if you can help with my little problem.

    I also have a Canon MP830 connected by USB to an Airport Extreme, so I can print wirelessly from my Macbook. I’m running Windows 7 64-bit Pro edition on the pc. I can print fine using Bonjour 2.0.2 from the pc and manage the Airport using the Airport utility, but I can’t see the ink status of the printer. I used to be able to see the ink status from my old computer running Win XP Pro SP3 32-bit with the same router and printer.

    Curiously, I could print from the Macbook, but couldn’t see the ink status from it until I upgraded from OS 10.5 to 10.6 and Canon drivers for OS 10.6. I can now see the ink status from the Macbook which receives the data wirelessly, but I can’t see the ink status from the pc which has a USB connection to the router.

    Not a big issue but continually irritating. I’d be grateful if you can suggest something.

  76. Thank you so much for your help. Now I’m confident I can print via my iMac HP Photosmart All-in-One from my Dell PC.

    Best Regards,

  78. It all looks ok – I now see something in the log file in the CUPS webpages:

    localhost – – [13/Aug/2011:19:34:49 +0100] “POST / HTTP/1.1” 200 909247 CUPS-Get-PPDs –
    localhost – – [13/Aug/2011:19:34:51 +0100] “POST /printers/HP_PSC_1600_series HTTP/1.1” 200 196 Create-Job successful-ok
    localhost – – [13/Aug/2011:19:34:51 +0100] “POST /printers/HP_PSC_1600_series HTTP/1.1” 200 277 Send-Document successful-ok

    but nothing is actually coming out the printer. Any idea where this is going wrong?

    • Try a different printer driver. You don’t need a driver that matches your printer type. It must be a postscript driver, though.

      • Actually, I removed all printers and ports, and started again. I get an error after step 5 but it does take me to step 7. I can ping the ip address, the name of the printer is correct. Does the driver chosen need to be the same brand of printer? there are only 3 PS drivers for HP printers, none seem to work

  80. All seemed to work fine until the end when the test page did not print it just hangs saying “collecting printer status”

    Any idea where I went wrong? Printer is canon MP280, Mac is Osx 10.5.8,windows 7 is home premium

  81. Yet another person you helped with this article! Thanks!

    One quick piece of advice for others reading this… Kodak ESP 3200 printer drivers do NOT work on Windows 7 through this method. You should use some other PostScript driver (Microsoft Publisher Color in the Generic category worked fine for me).

  82. I’ve got a PowerPC Mac (dual 1.25GHz) running 10.4.11. I just bought an eee PC netbook running Windows 7 Home Premium for travelling and decided to try wireless printing. I didn’t really expect it to work but it worked flawlessly after following your instructions. Brilliant, thanks.

  83. Thank you, thank you, thank you !!!! you have expertly and clearly enabled printing from our PC after three years of not being able to!

    Why manufacturers make it so difficult to do such a basic thing is beyond me. Your set up screengrabs were great.

  84. Thanks very much for your clear instructions, I was originally using IPP but it would lock up the application for a few seconds every time I wanted to print (Windows 7 to CUPS on Solaris).

    Thanks! I wish I had my old milan parallel lpd print server. It worked great for years.

  85. I followed the directions and got the error described in Part III Step 6. Nothing will print to my mac. I can ping my mac. I used a PS driver. I tried starting over, but cannot delete the port to try different drivers if there even are any (also, the printer is still in my devices even though it is inactive/deleted). Any suggestions?

    • I am not an expert as below illustrates but I came across your problem and this is how I got round it.

      I am running 10.4.11 on the Mac.

      In the Mac go to the application “printer setup utility”.

      Select ‘add’ button

      Select “default browser’

      Select the printer you are trying to share, mine was MP170

      In the box it should show ‘MP170’ change that to anything I called it MP170-2

      Select the ‘add’ button.

      When setting up in windows LPD port enter .

      Not a very sophisticated way as you keep gaining ports and printers but..

      I found I could also delete the LPD port (I think).

      In Windows 7 choose ‘Devices and printers” select the printer (port) you don’t want with ‘right click of mouse’ then chose delete device. That seems to delete the device and the port.

      If that does not work you could try:
      Go to ‘Devices and printers”,
      select one of the printers,
      Select ‘Printer server properties’
      select the tab ‘ports’
      then scroll down until you see a port named the one you wish to delete,
      press ‘delete’ button.

      I hope one of these methods help you.

  86. Basically I am getting blank pages.

    I have a Canon Pixma MP170, which is connected to Mac Mini running 10.4.11. I have a Window 7 Home premium laptop. The computers are connected through an internet rotor by ethernet.

    Printer works with both machines if directly connected by USB to the printer.

    I have set up (many times!) as per your instructions using many PS (colour and B&W) drivers and some not PS to test.

    I can send print jobs from the windows (including the test page) but they all come out as blank. So at least they are ‘talking’ to each other.

    I have checked and downloaded the latest drivers for the MP170 for the Mac.

    I have another Mac mini on the local network, which prints ok.

    I always print in B&W without problem. I tried changing the print setting in the utilities menu (on the Mac) from “color and black and white” to just “B&W” but after sending a job from windows it complained with an error 91.

    I have tried my usual method of the ‘monkey principle’ and even that hasn’t work!!!!

    Help would be gratefully received before the men in the white coats arrive.

    Cheers

  87. I’ve been reading through all the comments and I think what I need to know is: how do I attempt to ping the host computer, and what do I do if I can’t? I’m used to everything working automatically on my mac. I’m trying to get my wife’s Windows 7 laptop to work and I’m totally lost. Best I could figure was to click “network” in a [Windows equivalent of Finder] window, and the only computer I see is her laptop. Help?

    • To ping from Windows, click the start menu, type ‘cmd’ in the text field near the bottom and hit Enter. This will bring up a command window. Type ‘ping w.x.y.z’, where w.x.y.z is you Mac’s ip address.

      • Thank you. To my surprise, I can ping the Mac from the Windows laptop. I still have the step 6 error. (I’ve tried ignoring it and enabling internet printing in CUPS.)

  89. No joy – I have an EPSON Stylus Photo RX595 – I chose a diff driver from the list as mine was not listed (tried to update the driver but got a message that it was not supported by my OS) Printer shows busy (which it is not – my wife just printed from it from the Mac) or error.

  90. I’ve tried installing/re-installing Bonjour on my Windows 7 (Starter and Home Baisc) PCs but still unable to print on my shared (HP Laserjet P1102) printer connected to a Time Capsule. Windows says it’s done printing, but no document was printed. No problems, though, printing via Mac. Any help will be appreciated.

    • I figured that out while reading through the comments. Any suggestions on how I can resolve my dilemma sans upgrading to Windows 7 Home Premium?

      • Bonjour should work with any version of Windows 7. I’d make sure your Windows computers are up-to-date with service packs and patches, and also make sure you’re using the latest version of Bonjour for Windows (currently 2.0.2 — http://support.apple.com/kb/DL999). Then use the Bonjour Printer Wizard to try adding the shared printer. If you’ve already done all of this, I’m not sure what else to try.

  91. I couldn’t find any posts that answered a query I will pose. I’m running Win7 64b and am trying to print through an HP printer connected to my wife’s iMac. I’ve installed both Bonjour and later, your method successfully, both resulting in the same failed result: I can print a document. My laptop reports that the document is sent to the printer. The printer queue goes from 1 to 0, but there is absolutely no activity on the printer itself. The doc has vanished into think iAir. Can you help?

  92. On the PC:
    Install Bonjour.
    Follow the steps for setting up Bonjour.
    Once you have found your shared printer on the network and it asks you to specify the driver, go with the Generic Postscript or Text

  93. You made my day!! Just what the doctor ordered.

    Very clear instructions and works GREAT!!!

    Thank you very much.

  94. This is GREAT, though can I add something that might already be known to some:
    On the mac, you don’t have to go to 127.0.0.1:631. Just open your printers on the Mac and use the printer’s name. Rename it something easy to put into the Windows computer like “Canon MF4300” or “Mac HP”. Then put that in the Windows printer setup.

  95. OMG YAY! I’ve been trying to do this for YEARS! The only problem that I ran into was the error message you mentioned in step 6. I found that entering my Mac’s IP address did not work. I tried typing in the name of the computer instead “Cheryl-Mac.local” instead and it worked perfectly! Thank you so much!

  97. Thank you so much for these instructions. I have been looking online and in my computers’ help instructions for two days and tried many things…your instructions finally worked.

  98. Thank-YOU! Worked perfectly when… when I followed all of your instructions perfectly – only took 2 tries…. lol

  99. Everything seemed to have worked, but when I went into the other room to get the printout – the page was blank. Yes there is ink in the printer, as a test print from the connected Macbook was fine. I tried downloading and installing a universal HP Postscript driver, but then it started asking me for a username/password (and would not accept those for either the Windows laptop nor the Macbook) and I could not finish sending the print job. ARGH!!!

  100. This worked perfectly. I had been trying everything since I got my Windows 7 computer in 2010.
    Thanks so much for a solution to what I thought was impossible to do.

  101. I have win 7 64 bit on a laptop and mac os x 10.8.2 mountain lion with a canon ip5200 printer.

    I have tried everything mentioned here and I cannot print from my win 7 laptop.

    Any other suggestions?

    Bonjour on win7 does not even find anything.

    • I had the setup as shown on this site working with my Win 7 laptop & a 2006 iMac. I bought a new iMac and couldn’t reestablish this lp printer setup. I downloaded the latest Apple Bonjour and Canon printer driver — Bonjour now creates at printer that sends jobs to my new iMac over the local area net (Apple Base Station) — whereas it didn’t when I first got the Win 7 laptop. BUT print jobs resulted in blank pages until I installed HP Color Laserjet 3000 PS driver for the Canon printer in the Win 7 control panel “Printers & Devices” (right click on the Bonjour printer to get a window that shows the driver being used and install the HP driver instead of the Canon driver). It doesn’t make sense but it worked for me.

  102. Thank so so much – it worked perfectly (I have Windows 7 installed on my macbookpro). Your instructions were crystal clear and easy to follow. Lots of good karma coming your way :)

  103. I never could get CUPS to allow internet printing but it ended up working without it. After trying all other configurations above, I deleted all the printers and started over with Bonjour (for the 5th time) but used the Generic/Text Only driver. That seemed to open up the connection. Then I “upgraded” the driver in Printer Properties/Advanced to the MS Publisher Color Printer and HP Color Laserjet 2800 Series PS. I’m now printing from my pc laptop to two other mac laptops with printers attached. Word of caution: the generic driver printed one letter per line so use a very small text doc for your first test. ;) Thank you everyone!

  105. Hi I just set this up with Mac 10.8 + Brother laser printer, and wanting a Windows 8 PC to print via the network to the Mac. The major issue I had was that the during ‘add printer’ to error you have in your article kept coming up. I ended up using Bonjour for windows which setup a raw TCP connection to the Mac which worked great. The MAJOR difference between the two is that the URL in the TCP connection that Bonjour made has “http://:631/printers/”. The *printers* directory in the URL was the key to testing that it was accessible remotely. I highly recommend using Bonjour for Windows from Apple with the ‘add printer’ capability to make this really easy.

  108. Worked Great! Windows 7 Professional to OS 10.8.3. Bonjour not installed on Windows. Epson Stylus CX6600 shared on mac, Used HP 2800 PS driver.

    Variations of the process: I did enable Internet printing in CUPS and I enabled LPD in Windows “just because” (have not tried without these).

    The mac sharing preferences are set for Everyone to share the printer. This way, there is no need to for the windows account to be a recognized user by the mac.

  109. Pingback: Print from Windows 7 to a Mac Shared Printer (via Your Mac Guy (and more)) | chimac.net – Stuff worth knowing about ~

  110. THIS WORKED GREAT with Windows 7 Home Premium and Samsung Printer shared through os x 10.83. Nothing else worked but this did on the second try. Make sure to delete all other installations of the printer. Thanks

  111. Hi
    I’ve been tearing my hair out on this one, I can get to the add printer enter the info 192.xxx.xxx.xx and the printer Queue name HP_DESKJET_845C but I always get the error message.
    I have successfully pinged the Mac
    I have set up internet printing in CUPS
    The printer works when USB connected to any system.

    The weird thing I set this up only a few weeks ago using a straight forward network connection and instructions http://macs.about.com/od/printersharing/ss/mac-printer-sharing-with-win7.htm, but now, nada!!!

    Nothing I try seems to get me past this error.

    Please advise
    Mac 10.6.8
    Win 7 Pro SP1 fully updated
    Win 7 HP SP1 fully updated

    G

    • Have you checked if the Mac’s firewall is running? Unless the firewall is set to run in stealth mode, your Mac would still respond to pings.

      • Hi we’ve now tried the method on a separate win 7 system with same results. We have enabled the firewall on Mac but still no difference. Any more thoughts at all please?

        • Your firewall should be *disabled*, not enabled. I can’t think of any other reasons why you wouldn’t be able to connect. Have you tried using Bonjour?

          • Hi again, have come back to this issue again as still unresolved. I have tried with Firewalls on and off. When on I have enabled printer sharing and when off it’s allowing all connections. I have enabled and disabled LPD ports as well under the windows tools etc but always with the same results.

            It doesn’t seem to which Win 7 system I try it on it just wont work. Any more thoughts at all please? Even a pointer to another discussion forum..

          • Yes we did try using bonjour, but again no luck. I have now tried a full re-install of the Win OS 7Pro I did get close to a connection with the method I mentioned above, but nothing I do seems to get me any closer to a solution here…. Does anyone know what is going on?

  113. Thank you for posting this. My daughter got a Thinkpad T430 with 64 bit Win 7. It couldn’t find the printer connected to the iMac G4. The same printer my new Macbook Pro found with no problems and the same one my wife’s Intel iMac uses. I tried following the other “Add a Mac printer to a Win 7 machine” Google returns and they all assumed the printer was found. They did not work. Adding it as an LPR did.

    BTW, I also had to download the PCL 6 driver from Ricoh because Microsoft couldn’t find it even with “more drivers”.

    So again THANK YOU!!!

  114. I had the same problem trying to.print through a printer attached to a Mac. Bonjour worked!

  118. I have followed all of the steps and I continue to get the step 6 error. I can ping the mac that the printer is connected to.

    I am receiving this error in the log file:
    W [22/Oct/2013:19:12:08 -0500] No limit for Validate-Job defined in policy authenticated – using Print-Job’s policy
    W [22/Oct/2013:19:12:08 -0500] No limit for Validate-Job defined in policy kerberos – using Print-Job’s policy

    Mac system software = 10.6.8
    latest version of Bonjour
    Windows 7
    Firewalls disabled on both Mac and PC
    Installed the shown HP ps printer
    Target printer is a Canon MX459

    Not sure what to do at this point…

    Thanks.

        • The problem that I have with the approach you outline is that my printer is not installed as it’s true type or kind of printer. For me this is a show stopper. I am trying to print photos and need control over detailed paper sizes, borderless printing and color matching. Do you know of any way to get printer from Parallels working to a networked printer using the specific driver for the given printer?

  120. My USB connected EPSON SX130 shared on OS X 10.9 Mavericks didn’t work accessing from a Windows 8 setup. But installing Bonjour 1.0.6 and adding it with Generic > MS Publisher Imagesetter Driver instead EPSON one did the trick.

  121. PC with clean install Win 7 pro-64 bit, iMac with OSX 10.6.8 snow leopard, HP 6310 all in one printer connected to iMac via usb cable. Printer sharing turned on iMac. Both computers connected to the same router via ethernet cable. Win 7 would NOT print to iMac’s shared printer. But, when opening 127.0.0.1:631, it shows that every doc sent from Win 7 DID print and completed normally. There is nothing printed on the printer though? I did all of the steps, and turned on the LPR monitor in WIn 7. In add printers on Win 7, it did show HP printer connected to iMac as a choice to pick, even before I did the LPR monitor and then setup the added printer by the iMac’s ip address and cups printer que name. Anyway, nothing would work, until I noticed in reading the posts, that you said to use the post script driver, and NOT the correct driver (HP 6300 officejet series). I went back and chose the Color Laserjet 2800 ps driver, and it prints fine now! I just don’t understand why the old WIn XP computer could print to the iMac’s shared HP printer with no problems, but now that it’s WIn 7 pro 64-bit, it has to have this wrong driver?
    Microsoftie really screwed things up with Win 7. If this stuff all worked well in Win XP, why did they “break” it in WIn 7?
    Anyway, a HUGE THANK YOU for figuring this out for us!

  122. Pingback: Condividere la stampante di Mac OS X su Windows « Mauro Mottola ~

  123. You saved the day! Our local network is used by my wife and myself. One of us (and it isn’t me) uses a Windows 7 laptop; the rest of us uses Macs. When we replaced our old HP LaserJet 1200 with a new HP LaserJet 2035, I figured the Windows machine would print to the new printer without much setup. Wrong! HP techs couldn’t tell me whether I needed to add a printer driver, and they certainly couldn’t tell me which one. Microsoft wouldn’t tell me anything. Your 5+year-old article gave me two different ways to accomplish this, of course assisted by Bonjour, an Apple product (naturally, if you want to install an HP printer on a Windows machine you need a free Apple product). Although Bonjour did the job, your tip to use a PostScript printer driver made all the difference. I’m taking the rest of the day off.

  124. thanks for you post. i’m trying to install printer via bonjour on laptop to connect to HP laserjet on mac. printer works on mac and another mac. when i open bonjour it sees the printer but when i click the printer it tells me that it can find drivers. i click on the driver and it installs printer with green check next to printer. when i try and print nothing happens. any thoughts? thank you

  125. Epson NX 200. Driver on MacBook Pro 10.7.5. Printer works fine.
    Asus PC Laptop 1225B with driver same driver installed. Printer works fine. MacBook sees PC on network. Did the above, installed a second driver set as default. Used computer name as shown in Sharing Pane on MacBook. Message on PC is Printer not ready to print. Plug it into PC and it prints. I must have something set incorrectly.

  126. This is the BEST solution! I bought a new Dell i3147 2-in-1 with pre-installed Win 8.1 and nothing would print to a shared HP printer on the wired home network. The printer is connected to a Mac by usb. When using a Win XP computer, that would easily setup and print to this printer. But, Win 8.1 refuses to print. It “sees” the shared printer, and will setup and install the driver, but nothing would print. Tried everything, and nothing. Microsoft was NO help at all!! When I did your steps, and set up the LPR Port, like you said, it now works great!! Before I found your article, I spent DAYS trying to fix this. Thank You so much for your solution!! Why in the world won’t Microsoft FIX this well known PROBLEM or bug in Windows 7, WIndows 8, and Windows 8.1 ??? In fact, Microsoft should just post your solution on their website, since they obviously refuse to FIX their problem!

  127. Day three on this problem. I have a 64 Bit Dell Latitude running Windows 7. I am able to get through the entire setup you specified but I cannot get my test page to print. So I decided to use Bonjour now I get a message saying ” You do not have sufficient access to your computer to the selected printer”. I have changed all types of settings and security and still the same thing. What is the setting I need to change?

    • On a side note, this is the third Windows 7 computer I am attempting to use with my IMac. The other two are both WIndows 7. (One is a Windows 7 Home Edition 64 bit, the other is a Windows 7 Professional 32 Bit) This one is (the one I am having problems with) is a Windows 7 Professional 64 Bit. The first two laptops were networked just fine using Bonjour, so I don’t think it is my IMac Settings. The only thing I can think of is that Windows Laptop needs a user ID and password to get through the firewall on the Mac- but it does not seem to be asking me for it anywhere. Any ideas would be helpful?

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