What Brands of Printers are Reccomended?

M

mrdalej

Member
Since Canon states:
Unfortunately, Canon does not support networking of the printers across two different operating systems. You may wish to contact Apple for more assistance with this. I am sorry for any inconvenience caused by this.

Sincerely,
Devin
Technical Support Representative

:) WHAT BRANDS of ink jet Printers is everyone using on their Windows with Parallels? Epson has almost dissapeared from local store shelves in Redding, CA. :)

dale j
 
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HP and Epson are the most open printer companies, and do whatever they can to be useable across multiple platforms.

Most certainly, one should never, ever, by a Canon. Even if you don't need multi platform, or have a work around.
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I don't think that Canon means to say that your printer will not work. It just means that they have never heard of Parallels.

There are at least two ways to get your printer to work, if you follow the threads in the Parallels for Mac forum, as MrSA has pointed you to...
1) Print to your Canon as if printing to a network printer attached to the Mac. This method involves using Bonjour for Windows, and is detailed in many threads over there. This method is quick and simple, and I recommend you try it first.
2) The second method assumes there is functionality in the Windows Print Drivers for your Canon that means you would lose significant functionality if you did not install the Canon driver on your VM. There are many threads detailing this procedure, too. It is a little more work, but it is doable.

The key to solving your problem is to realize that it is not a Canon-specific problem, but a USB-printing problem. Therefore, just about any thread on printing might help you

The good news is that most likely you don't have to throw away your printer - as long as it is supported on the Mac.
 
I found the Canon Printing Solution

:) First let me state for the record that Canon USB 2.0 printers do not seem to work with Bonjour or with installing the driver. It has to do with the printer being a USB 2.0 device & Parallels disliking USB 2.0 devices.

Having said that here is my working solution:

1. Canon will not print/share cross platform.

3. Parallels has an issue with correctly using USB 2 printers.

3. Parallels likes to find printers using Bonjour.

4. Apple Airport Extreme Base Stations have a Bonjour USB port for printers.

5. By hooking up a USB printer to an Airport Extreme's USB port and going into the Airport and TURNING OFF distribute IPs as we already had a good router. We can print to a discoverable Bonjour Printer from Windows XP Pro and not be cross platform. :)

6. We don't even need wireless to find the printer as we connected the LAN port of the Airport Extreme to an open LAN port on our router and everything just works and you can even surf the net from the Airport as the Primary Router will hand out a DHCP address.

(Gotcha) This may or may not work on an Airport Express as the Express has only one ethernet port? I just happened to have a used Airport Extreme so that is what we tested with.
 
mrdalej said:
:) First let me state for the record that Canon USB 2.0 printers do not seem to work with Bonjour or with installing the driver. It has to do with the printer being a USB 2.0 device & Parallels disliking USB 2.0 devices.

Having said that here is my working solution:

1. Canon will not print/share cross platform.
Click to expand...

Really worth emphasising that cross platform printing capabilities depend on platform technologies and not on the printer manufacturer.

I will say it again. The answers to setting up printers are here:

http://forums.parallels.com/post24774-66.html

I have just set up a Canon 5200R attached by USB. I know what I am doing, but the whole job takes only 2 and a half minutes . I have recorded a video of it being done so you can copy the procedure and get yourself out of this hole.

http://dpreview.hotair.fastmail.co.uk/Canon%205200%20setup.mov

In the course of the video you will see me...

1. Plug-in the USB printer on the Mac (canon software already installed)
2. Check the System Profiler for the USB connection settings. I refresh the Profiler to get the information I need. I copy the URI setting to the clipboard.
3. I use the web interface to the CUPS printing system (http://127.0.0.1:631). You may have to enter your short user name and normal password at this stage. I set up a Raw printer queue. This involves pasting the URI information from step 2.
4. I check that the raw printer queue is active as a shared printer (Don't be confused by my having two entries with the same description - it is just that I am too lazy and copied my Epson printer's description).
5. In Parallels, I setup a network printer - my network is setup so that I can use DNS names such as 'macpro' for my machine - you may have to use the IP address.
6. I verify that I can access the printer properties and I have at this stage printed a test page.

It works. It prints a test page. I use this setup daily. It works with no compromises. It doesn't need extra Airport hardware.
 
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Canon, in my humble opinion, is a very dubious company. They have very little to no concern for customers, and focus entirely on their bottom line.

Do not, ever, ever, ever, buy a Canon product.
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Red rag to a Canon fan

constant said:
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Canon, in my humble opinion, is a very dubious company. They have very little to no concern for customers, and focus entirely on their bottom line.

Do not, ever, ever, ever, buy a Canon product.
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Click to expand...

That isn't really helpful now, is it? Nor humble.:confused:

Many people would disagree with you, especially the majority of pro sports photographers who use canon 1dmkII digital SLRs, the large number of non-MF studio photographers who use Canon 1DsmkII digital SLRs, the growing number of wedding photographers who use the Canon 5D, the large number of photojournalists also using the 5D as well as the host of amateurs using these cameras and also those less inaccessible. Those pro photographers are choosing their equipment because it gives them the best chance of getting paid at the end of a working day. The camera bodies are only part of the story, with the lens system also being first class (except perhaps their wide angle offerings) and having universal coverage.

On the printers side of things, Canon's dye prints from consumer printers have always been of fantastic image quality, if not renowned for lasting fade-free archive quality. For many users, this is exactly what is required. Their ip5200 and ip4200 printers (and others) blend this fantastic consumer-level gloss photo performance with plain paper general printing capability, making them a fantastic choice for those who want one printer that can do it all (except speciality large format printing).

Strikes me that you had a bad experience, but the market isn't going with Canon out of some perverted desire to self-harm. Canon sell competitive products in a competitive market. Some people like what they do.:(
 
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Did I say humble? I meant honest.

And it may be helpful to someone who was previously unaware of how Canon play the game.
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