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  • AirPrint Enabled Printers Check

    From Alan B@alanrichardbarker@gmail.com.invalid to uk.comp.sys.mac on Thu May 28 08:02:58 2026
    From Newsgroup: uk.comp.sys.mac

    With Intel support including Rosetta 2 ending in the not too
    distant future macOS versions, printers having only Intel coded
    drivers may cease to function unless supported by AirPrint. Apple
    have a useful site to check if your printer is AirPrint enabled.

    <https://mfi.apple.com/account/airprint-search>

    It seems mine is supported :)
    --
    Cheers, Alan
    --- Synchronet 3.22a-Linux NewsLink 1.2
  • From Theo@theom+news@chiark.greenend.org.uk to uk.comp.sys.mac on Thu May 28 09:32:52 2026
    From Newsgroup: uk.comp.sys.mac

    Alan B <alanrichardbarker@gmail.com.invalid> wrote:
    With Intel support including Rosetta 2 ending in the not too
    distant future macOS versions, printers having only Intel coded
    drivers may cease to function unless supported by AirPrint. Apple
    have a useful site to check if your printer is AirPrint enabled.

    <https://mfi.apple.com/account/airprint-search>

    It seems mine is supported :)

    If yours isn't supported, you may want to check if it supports PCL or PostScript natively, which can be generated from generic drivers on the Mac. (PostScript is trademarked so it could be a clone, eg Brother calls theirs BRScript3). I've set up mine with the close enough printer name that's available in the OS - Brother HL-L1234 (Postscript) - where the L1234 is not the model I have, but it works fine.

    If not, and it's likely cheap printers and fancy photo printers affected,
    you can set up a CUPS server to run on an Intel Mac. Your Mac sends PDF to CUPS, which renders it using the original driver and sends it on. Macs use
    CUPS under the hood for printing anyway, so it just needs exposing to your neteork and adding as a printer on your newer Mac.

    Theo
    --- Synchronet 3.22a-Linux NewsLink 1.2
  • From Alan B@alanrichardbarker@gmail.com.invalid to uk.comp.sys.mac on Thu May 28 09:00:29 2026
    From Newsgroup: uk.comp.sys.mac

    On 2026-05-28, Theo <theom+news@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
    Alan B <alanrichardbarker@gmail.com.invalid> wrote:
    With Intel support including Rosetta 2 ending in the not too
    distant future macOS versions, printers having only Intel coded
    drivers may cease to function unless supported by AirPrint. Apple
    have a useful site to check if your printer is AirPrint enabled.

    <https://mfi.apple.com/account/airprint-search>

    It seems mine is supported :)

    If yours isn't supported, you may want to check if it supports PCL or PostScript natively, which can be generated from generic drivers on the Mac. (PostScript is trademarked so it could be a clone, eg Brother calls theirs BRScript3). I've set up mine with the close enough printer name that's available in the OS - Brother HL-L1234 (Postscript) - where the L1234 is not the model I have, but it works fine.

    If not, and it's likely cheap printers and fancy photo printers affected,
    you can set up a CUPS server to run on an Intel Mac. Your Mac sends PDF to CUPS, which renders it using the original driver and sends it on. Macs use CUPS under the hood for printing anyway, so it just needs exposing to your neteork and adding as a printer on your newer Mac.

    My Epson ET-2850 does not appear to support PCL or PostScript natively
    which is a shame. However I've tested it with a Tahoe VM with neither
    Epson drivers nor Rosetta 2 installed and very fortunately it worked
    fine via AirPrint. Maybe Epson will produce some native Silicon Mac
    utilities for the printer one day - but I'm not holding my breath!
    --
    Cheers, Alan
    --- Synchronet 3.22a-Linux NewsLink 1.2
  • From Theo@theom+news@chiark.greenend.org.uk to uk.comp.sys.mac on Thu May 28 17:34:36 2026
    From Newsgroup: uk.comp.sys.mac

    Alan B <alanrichardbarker@gmail.com.invalid> wrote:
    My Epson ET-2850 does not appear to support PCL or PostScript natively
    which is a shame. However I've tested it with a Tahoe VM with neither
    Epson drivers nor Rosetta 2 installed and very fortunately it worked
    fine via AirPrint. Maybe Epson will produce some native Silicon Mac utilities for the printer one day - but I'm not holding my breath!

    It looks like the ET-2750 is supported by Gutenprint and I suspect the
    ET-2850 is similar:
    https://gimp-print.sourceforge.io/p_Supported_Printers.php

    so it 'just' needs somebody to step forward as a Gutenprint maintainer for MacOS...

    Theo
    --- Synchronet 3.22a-Linux NewsLink 1.2
  • From Alan B@alanrichardbarker@gmail.com.invalid to uk.comp.sys.mac on Sun Jun 7 14:16:57 2026
    From Newsgroup: uk.comp.sys.mac

    On 2026-05-28, Theo <theom+news@chiark.greenend.org.uk> wrote:
    Alan B <alanrichardbarker@gmail.com.invalid> wrote:
    My Epson ET-2850 does not appear to support PCL or PostScript natively
    which is a shame. However I've tested it with a Tahoe VM with neither
    Epson drivers nor Rosetta 2 installed and very fortunately it worked
    fine via AirPrint. Maybe Epson will produce some native Silicon Mac
    utilities for the printer one day - but I'm not holding my breath!

    It looks like the ET-2750 is supported by Gutenprint and I suspect the ET-2850 is similar: https://gimp-print.sourceforge.io/p_Supported_Printers.php

    so it 'just' needs somebody to step forward as a Gutenprint maintainer for MacOS...

    Well I've sorta cheated! I've created a Tahoe VM with Rosetta 2 and
    the the 2850 drivers installed. So fingers crossed the VM will be able
    to apply updates, especially firmware, in several future macOS versions
    if ARM compatible software is not provided by Epson.
    --
    Cheers, Alan
    --- Synchronet 3.22a-Linux NewsLink 1.2