New Mac no printer

[harry the cat]

I have just bought an iMac and I've been trying to get my Canon Pixma MP150 to work with it. I've installed the original software for Mac and downloaded what look like the up to date drivers for the printer and scanner from Canon via the apple link.

When I try to get the printer to work the application wont open and the Mac just tells me that the drivers for the printer aren't installed. Repeated installation and restarting the computer don't seem to persuade it otherwise.

The printer and scannerstill work with my old laptop.

Any ideas?

 

[Roger Chatterton]

Is it possible that your old Mac was running on the pre Intel chipset, and that your new iMac is on an Intel chip ? You might have installed the wrong drivers for your iMac.
There is a bit of freeware available called PrintGimp ( or very similar). This has solved lots of printer problems for some folk.

Also, which OS are you running on the iMac, and what were you running on your laptop?
Maybe a difference between Tiger and Snow Leopard for example.
So, in brief, more detailed info on set up might be helpful !!!

 

[sparkplug]

As my esteemed colleague Mr Chatterton said - some more details would be great

In the meantime you might try, as Roger suggested, Gimp-Print or Gutenprint altough I can't see the Pixma 150 listed. It might be that the drivers for the 170 or 180 might work?

Did you install the CUPS printer driver from the Canon site? Might help...

I'm guessing this is the driver for the printer you installed?

Let us know how you get on

 

[Mike Gough]

Snow Leopard

Hi
When Apple changed from Leopard to Snow Leopard a lot of the older printer drivers became redundant.
Many of the manufacurers only changed the drivers on their latest printers to work with Snow. Drivers for their older printers weren't updated.

Best talking to the printer manufacturer direct. You should still be able to use your printer, but it wont be able to use all the facilities it had when using Leopard.

Although Snow Leopard doesn't look that diferent from Leopard, it was a major upgrade underneath the user interface.

 

[harry the cat]

More info.

Perhaps a lack of information on my part. The laptop is a T30 thinkpad and the printer works fine with that using the original software and drivers.

The new iMac works on 10.6.2 and I did download it from the window you show in the link. When that didn't work I went at it from another direction via a link from Apple to Canon. That comes up with a different window but what appears to be the same drivers. It includes a separate driver for the scanner element. I installed both.

I'll try both your suggestions when I get a minute (or an hour or two) and let you know.

Thanks for your thoughts.

 

[harry the cat]

Update

Tried Gutenprint and found the driver for the MP150, Downloaded but no gain. Tried the Canon FAQ's , no gain.

E - mailed support and awaiting reply.

While I'm waiting , seeing as there is a depth of knowledge amongst you guys (he said crawling slightly) let me ask you two other questions which have cropped up.

I have bought a very nice looking Hitachi external hard drive 1TB which I was going to use to store all documents and photos. When buying the Mac I was persuaded to buy Airport Express which I was told would act as a hub which I could use to connect the iMac with my old thinkpad and a netbook I use when we're travelling.

I was told the hub would also control the printer and the external hard drive but I will need a USB splitter for that which I havent yet got (which is why I tried the direct printer connect to the Mac).

I have set up the hub and it now controls the wireless modem for the Mac but I am having problems getting it to connect to the laptop (havent tried the netbook). Anybody know definitively if the Airport device is compatible with windows?

Secondly will the external driver work with both windows XP and the Mac. I've read the instructions which are a bit vague but seem to say that once connected it will format for what you're connected to and formatting will delete anything already in. The plan (such as it was) was to scoop all the files out of the XP and dump then either in the hub or the Mac and from there to the hub.

Any thoughts?

Apologies for the length of the questions, and my evident ignorance.

 

[skyenet]

Regarding printers on OS/X 10.6.2 I followed Apple advice and didn't install any drivers from manufacture's CDs when connecting up my all-in-one Epson CX3650. I just went with the Snow Leopard ones. They were okay but didn't allow me to check ink levels or any other utilities. The scanner worked fine though. However recently the drivers were updated through Software Update and now have Utilities available. Unfortunately my printer developed a fault and have just replaced it with a HP 4580 all in one, including WiFi. Again I just went with Apple Snow Leopard drivers and all is working fine. Did take quite a bit of messing about to get the WiFi working though. Can also access it from a Acer Notebook running Windows. Higher res scanner than my older Epson so probably worked out okay. Just a bit of a pain as I had quiet a few ink cartridges left.

Not quite sure on your external drive questions but most come formatted for Windows. Macs can still read Windows formatted drives but if you were only using the drive on a Mac then it would be advisable to format it as a Mac drive. Not used an Airport Express Hub so can't really advise you on setting it up.