How’s printing working out for everybody?
Success Stories? Horror Stories? What’s the Story?
I have an HP Photosmart but all it likes to print is what appears to be ancient Sumarian or possibly Matrix movie code.
None of which is in my world class Cheesecake recipe that I was printing. (or is it??? Hmmm…)
If you’re having luck printing, what printer and what driver do you use?
Good day,
I’ve recently got a network laser printer from HP working, though with some issues, as nothing can be set but the page size. It took me some time to figure out the right setup, and right now I just printed the test page and it prints in color, though with some messy stuff. I need to improve testing on this. Next is trying to find this printer’s PPD file and see if I can get Haiku to use it in order to properly identify the printer.
I also tried to send something to this printer from a KDE app and nope, no printing available as the printer was not selectable from the printing dialog of the KDE app (Krita).
I tried also at work with another printer, also network, this time a Brother laser without any success yet, and tried several different setups. None of them worked.
I need to do more testing, and hopefully will improve my answer in the following weeks?
Regards,
RR
Details:
Printer: Color Laserjet Pro MFP M281fdn
Driver: Gutenprint
Transport: HP JetDirect
And the test page:
Not sure if should be like this though. 
There is no PPD file for this multifunction in the Gutenprint list, so I had to pick one that … is “close enough”?.
It does print in color, though with some quirks, at least in the test page. I’ll check later with documents. Haven’t tried scanning yet, though @vidrep already pointed out that on HP this is a no go.
Sounds like we should have supported printer list for haiku like the hardware one
Some printers/fax/scan work through email and/or other IPP (i.e. WLAN/LAN) methods. Also, the printer’s storage device input(s) help for transferring local and/or remote work…
There is a list for Gutenprint driver:
http://gimp-print.sourceforge.net/p_Supported_Printers.php
Unfortunately my Brother HL-1430 is not listed and therefore not working with Haiku. Closest ones are: Brother HL-1440, Brother HL-1450 and Brother HL-1470N but they won’t work for me! So close but no idea how to writer a Printer Driver. Even there is somewhere a tutorial about how to write a Printer-Driver for BeOs/Haiku.
Best way is to use “print to pdf” in Haiku and print it out somewhere else (Copy-Shop)
I have a script that copies a pdf to a linux machine on my home network and runs a print command. Not ideal but it gets the job done
Of course if you have another OS around you can simply print your PDF from there.
Anyway these days color prints are expensive toys. I prefer to print only black and white laser at home and for color prints some online services…
Sounds interesting. Would you like to write a tutorial for the besly?
I have an HP printer that supports AirPrint/IPP Anywhere and so should work without specific drivers. A lot of modern printers can do this (it is required to print from iPad and I think also Android systems) and I think more and more will.
Right now there is no support for this in Haiku. Someday I’ll have a look at adding the needed parts…
I’ve tested a variety of multifunction printers over the years using the Gutenprint drivers and Sanity (SANE front end).
Epson and Canon printers are well supported (printing, scanning, over USB or network)
HP will print if there is a Gutenprint driver, but scanning is not supported.
Brother - no luck with the ones I have tried to date
Try with Brother HL-1250.
Brother’s printers are usually PCL/Postscript-compatible or GDI-based. If you use PCL or Postscript, it usually will work. Some of the older models - I’d suggest the approved supported printer setups only!.
Thank you for your effort to look into it. Does not work. Yes it is a GDI based printer.
I tried to use PCL5 and it worked! Strange… after all this years!
There are some glitches with the testpage though. But anyway, it works! Maybe it was a USB problem since then?!
PCL6 is not working.
How to choose a GDI based driver?
I am really very, very surprised! But happy!
This printer is now 18 years old and still working very well, and now with Haiku!
I’d be happy to, but it would be quite a short article. It’s based around a script that just copies the file with scp and queues it to the named printer using lp via ssh. It also converts pdf to ps. The usage looks like:
Usage: rlp.sh [args] file
-1 Single sided mode (default)
-2 Double sided mode
-p Portrait (default)
-l Landscape
-u user Remote username
-s host Remote host
-d printer Remote printer device (as listed by "lpstat -p -d")
-h show usage
(I don’t know why some of the above is highlighted)
I have created some auxiliary scripts that call this one with the right parameters for specific printers, and then I can drag and drop pdf files onto the script for a certain printer and it prints the file (that part is achieved using xicon https://www.goodeveca.net/beos/xicon.html)
EDIT: I just put the script on pastebin: https://pastebin.com/s470xnKt
Gutenprint 5.3 supports 3,562+ printers.
Basically this printer list: is now supported: http://gimp-print.sourceforge.net/p_Supported_Printers.php
I recently connected an older Pixma mp 510 to haiku and managed to print with it nicely (via usb)
My main takesway from that is that the gutenprint config dialog needs a bit of improvement, to be less of a soul crushing endless list :)
My printer is working now with usb…
It would be good to guide the user to get their printer working.
I got it working with help from the forum.
Did not know it is working with USB now!