Chapter 9: Printing and Faxing

This Chapter covers how to print and fax in Mac OS X. Aside from what is being displayed on a monitor, printing is one of the most common forms of output in computing. Because Mac OS is a preferred platform in print and graphics industries, Apple did everything in its power to equal and often surpass the capabilities of its predecessors and its competition. Not only does Mac OS X deliver print connectivity options superior to any other shipping OS, it also provides built-in faxing and PDF capabilities.

Overview of Mac OS X Printing

Regardless of printing needs — from graphic artists, Apple Certified Technical Coordinators (ACTCs), book or newsletter editors, to home use printers of letters and birthday cards — understanding the underlying technology that comprises the Mac OS X print architecture is helpful in its operation. Mac OS X’s printing services are based on the Common UNIX Printing System, better known as CUPS. CUPS is a cross-platform open source printing architecture that supports both PostScript and raster printers.

Mac OS X supports six types of printer connectivity: AppleTalk, Directory Services, IP Printing, Rendezvous, USB, and Windows Printing.

In order to print, Mac OS X requires a driver. A driver is a piece of software that allows the operating system to control a hardware device. If the additional Print Drivers were installed during the initial installation of Mac OS X, the OS supplies by default a sizable collection of third-party printer drivers for popular printers, including printers from Canon, Epson, Hewlett-Packard, and Lexmark. All of these print drivers are located in the top Library folder of your startup disk, grouped into folders by manufacturer. If, by chance, the required driver is not present for your printer, check the printer manufacturer’s Web site for availability and the most recent iteration.

In theory, USB printers should provide the path of least resistance for installation (provided that the appropriate printer driver has been installed). If you have a printer connected that matches one of the supplied USB printer drivers, Mac OS X recognizes it automatically and that printer is set as the default choice in the Print dialog.

Note

You may have noticed that the Mac OS X Finder does not include a Print command in its File menu (or any other Finder menu for that matter). If you want to print a Finder window or the Desktop, you will need to take a snapshot of the screen using z-Shift-3, z-Shift-4, or the Grab utility. Then you will need to print it from the Preview application or Grab utility, respectively. Another way to deal with this feature deficiency is to use the third-party shareware utility Print Window, which we cover in Chapter 22.

Overview of Printers

Parallel, serial, USB, network, PostScript, raster, inkjet, laser, LED, dye sublimation, thermal wax, dot matrix, and impact are all ways to categorize printers. There are overlaps between the categories. For example, just because many PostScript printers are networked and laser-based doesn’t mean that a USB inkjet printer can’t be networked or PostScript enabled. Also, although Macintosh computers do not include the parallel ports required for many popular printers (for Windows), that doesn’t rule out the use of a Windows printer by a Mac. Several third-party manufacturers sell USB-to-parallel converter cables that enable Macs to print to a select number of supported printers.

A quick review of the printer technology scene is as follows: Networked printers are printers accessed via a network connection such as Ethernet or AirPort using either IP or AppleTalk networking protocols. USB printers are physically connected to your Mac or to a USB hub, which in turn is connected to your Mac. Printers that use serial connectivity are literally and figuratively dinosaurs in the sense that they are being replaced by USB connectivity, and as such no recently manufactured Macintosh computers even include a serial port.

PostScript is a page description language (PDL) developed by Adobe Systems. PostScript is a mathematical language that has operators, variables, and commands that control precise shape and placement information for everything that gets drawn on a page, not just the fonts, although they are the most obvious example people see. A PostScript printer has a raster image processor (RIP), which translates the PostScript code into a raster image (set of discrete dots) that represents the data on the printed page at the current printer resolution. Thus, a one-inch line that is 1/6 of an inch thick is translated into 15,000 dots at 300 dpi, and into 240,000 dots at 1200 dpi. Because the RIP is an embedded computer requiring its own memory, PostScript printers are generally more expensive than non-PostScript printers. (And add the fee charged by Adobe or another RIP vendor to the printer manufacturer for using their RIP.) Although more common on laser printers, you can also find PostScript-enabled inkjet printers and dye-sublimation printers.

An alternative to PostScript RIPs are raster RIPs. A raster image processor uses a combination of hardware and software that converts images described in the form of vector graphics statements into raster graphics images or bitmaps.

Inkjet printers produce their output by spraying streams of ink through tiny nozzles onto the paper, transparency, or other media. Laser printers use heat to affix tiny particles of toner to the output medium.

On the surface, the least expensive printer type, at least initially, is the inkjet. However, if you’re going to be producing a lot of output you’ll find that the cost of consumables (ink cartridges) is fairly high. A single cartridge typically lasts about 500 pages and costs approximately $20 (some less, some more). In contrast, a typical laser printer produces about 4,000 pages from one toner cartridge that costs approximately $100.

Mac OS X ships with the ability to use most of the currently shipping printers; to verify if your printer is compatible visit http://www.apple.com/macosx/upgrade/printers.html.