How to print from Mac OS X to unrecognized foreign Samsung printers

I grew up on PCs, but when it comes to getting design work done, I’m a serious Mac user.  Most Koreans aren’t, and this means that there’s hardly ever anyone around who can help you, say, set up a Korean printer to work with your Mac.  This gets extra tough when the Samsung printer to which you’d like to connect isn’t actually meant to support Macs in the first place.

I got lucky.  As soon as I was able to get the proper Mac drivers for the funky Samsung ML-8900 at my school, I was able to set myself up for our office printer with no extra hassle.  But not everyone has such an easy time of it.

Download Samsung ML-8×00 Mac OS X Printer Drivers Installer

Today, I was trying to use the same drivers at my girlfriend’s office, but it was a no-go.

The mac drivers I had were for the Samsung ML-8×00 (download above), and her printer is an ML-8700.   Those are the right drivers, so no sweat, right?  Wrong.  I could get her computer to send a file to the printer for printing, but the printer would spew out page after page of useless data.  Actually, this all the normally-hidden formatting/meta-data that your computer always sends along to the printer along with any file, you just aren’t supposed to see any of it printed out.  The fact that it was getting printed out meant that the printer driver wasn’t playing nicely.  What to do?

Here’s how I eventually solved the problem, and so can you.  Please note that these instructions will vary slightly, depending on your version of OS X.

1. First, make sure that the problem really is the drivers, i.e.: your computer is properly connected to the printer, you’ve got the correct IP Address for the network printer, the printer’s status is “online”, and there is paper in the tray.
2. (If you’re using OS X Leopard, then skip this step) Download the free/open source Gutenprint Driver and install it
   
3. Go into your OS X System Preferences and into the Printer & Fax option.  Click to add a new printer.  If it’s an IP printer (i.e. you have its IP address written down), then select “IP”.  For the driver, click “Select Driver to Use” to select it from a list.
   
4. OS X Leopard should list lots of different Samsung printer models by default.  Normally, previous versions of OS X would list only one or a few, but, thanks to having installed Gutenprint in the step above, the list on previous versions of OS X should now include many more Samsungs.
   
5. Ideally, you would just select your actual printer model and “tada!”, but it’s probably not quite that straight forward.  If the driver for your printer model isn’t in the list or isn’t working, then here’s the trick: choose a different model number that’s as close as possible to your own. That’s it.  Just choose a similar model that says “Gutenprint next to it”, and press ADD to finish.  Gutenprint will take care of the rest.
   
6. Do a test print.  Perhaps, like me, you will be pleasantly surprised to find it working perfectly, even though you have selected what is supposed to be the wrong printer model.

Gutenprint contains within it all of the information necessary to set up a slew of usually unsupported printers in Mac OS X.  Even if you are trying to set up a printer that isn’t Samsung, or isn’t anything close to what I was dealing with in the instructions above, do consider trying Gutenprint as your printer driver if you’re having problems.

Happy printing!

2 Responses to “How to print from Mac OS X to unrecognized foreign Samsung printers”

1. » How to print from Mac OS X to unrecognized foreign Samsung printers » Mac Life says:

   October 22, 2008 at 6:58 pm

   [...] Apple news by admin [...]
2. Dmitry Volokhov» Blog Archive » How to Print from Mac OS X on Foreign Printers using Gutenprint says:

   April 10, 2009 at 10:31 am

   [...] Related PagesHow to print from Mac OS X to unrecognized foreign Samsung printers [...]