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March 29, 2024, 01:12:25 AM

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Print Proxy type thing

Started by MojoJojo, December 01, 2020, 10:43:11 AM

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MojoJojo

I have a Dell 1320c colour laser printer. It is fab, in that it's cheap to run and produces decent output without all the crap you that ink jets put you through.

However, it is old and relies on old Windows printer drivers to work. If I look for a printer from android or chromebook it's not found, despite being shared. I was using google cloud print, which was OK when it worked (it would mysteriously just say "error" a lot of the time). But now google are closing it.

Is there some piece of software I can put on my Windows PC that will make it look like a printer to android, and then just print anything sent to my old Dell? I also have a linux box running. It almost feels like something I could knock up myself using pdf as an intermediary but I don't want the hassle.

Help my techy-ones, you're my only hope.

Blumf

Linux systems have CUPS which supports IPP which recent versions of Android (Oreo) supports, so maybe you can set the printer up on the Linux box and share it via that?

I think Windows can share via IPP, but no idea how complex that is, not to hard getting it to connect to a CUPS server though.

All of this guessing, never tried it.

MojoJojo

Thanks - that looks like something I can work on at least.

MojoJojo

Got it working. Getting Linux to support it was a bit of a ball ache but I eventually found a git hub repository where someone had hacked together the necessary files (the ppd is modified Xerox one). And cups itself was a bit annoying as the Web interface was blocked from non-localhost. But then the printer just appeared in android.

After doing a test print it then disappeared again for about an hour. But it's back now so hopefully it will settle down.