The printer's main configuration tool window (figure 16-15) contains four buttons:
Add a new printer: to launch the printer configuration wizard described below;
Refresh printer list: to browse all printers accessible by this machine, either locally or served by other cups servers on the local network. The said cups servers are accessible for printing, without reconfiguring them.
Quit: when you are finished configuring or reconfiguring the printers.
![]() | Additionally, you get a tree view of accessible printers on top of the window, in case printers are already available. |
Click on the Add a new printer button, and the configuration wizard will come up. To go from one step to another, click the button. Use to abort the installation.
The first screen offers to enable auto-detection of locally connected printers. Try first figure 16-22. If the configured printer is wrong, or if auto-detection failed, click and follow the instructions below.
; if it works, the next step presents which printer(s) was/were detected. If you are happy with it, click on and jump toFirst of all you need to tell on which port your printer is connected; either a parallel or USB port.
Then, you are asked whether your printer is a multi-function device. Answer according to your actual printer. If so, additional packages will be installed on your system and you will be told how to scan with your device.
Then, you need to provide a name for your printer to easily identify it, and optionally, a Printer description and a Physical location (figure 16-19).
You are then presented the list of supported printers. It is a tree view with the manufacturer's name first and then the printer's model. Select the printer you have or a compatible one (figure 16-20).
After that, you are presented the options associated with the chosen printer (figure 16-21). It is important you choose the proper paper size and the ink type which is currently selected. Indeed, if those settings are not correct, the printing may fail.
![]() | For settings regarding the printout quality, keep in mind that higher quality levels make the printer substantially slower. |
![]() | If you already have one or more configured printers, you will then be asked whether you want to use the printer being configured as the default or not. If you say , the former printer default will remain. |
Finally, you are asked whether you want to test the printer or not. Two test pages are available (figure 16-22) so you can adjust the parameters according to your future use. It is advisable to print at least one test, so you can immediately correct the parameters if something goes wrong. After a moment, the printer should begin to print, and you will be asked whether the printing was successful or not.
If the printing was successful, answer figure 16-25) in order to correct the settings. See the Reconfiguring an Existing Printer section.
, and you will return to the printers list. Congratulations, you are ready to print! If , you will get the printer configuration menu (Your printer will now appear in the list of local printers in the main window (figure 16-24).
Double-clicking on a printer's name in the list displays a menu where you can choose actions to take on that printer, as shown in figure 16-25. Each option gives access to a particular step of the wizard we described above (The Printer Configuration Wizard) in the case of a new printer, but with predefined values in all fields, which you may update.
There are two additional options:
Know how to use the printer: displays much information about how to use that printer model. In the case of a multi-function device from HP, scanning information are also displayed;;
Remove printer: if you want to delete the configuration of that printer from the system. The printer won't be available anymore for printing.
The expert mode basically has three additional features:
Switch from one printing system to another. This is allowed by the new
which appears in the main menu. Three systems are available: CUPS (by default), LPRng, and PDQ. Choosing one or the other is out of the scope of this manual.Choose a different driver than the default for a printer. There are generally different drivers available for a same printer. In expert mode, a third level appears in the printer model selection list (figure 16-20) allowing to change the driver for each printer.
Install a remote printer. Below, we show this feature, which allows to print on remote printers installed anywhere on a local network.
If you start the new printer wizard in expert mode, there is an additional step at the beginning.
Five different connection types are available:
USB port of your computer. In most cases, the printer model will be auto-detected;
: a printer directly connected to a parallel/: a printer already served by another machine on a lpd server;
: a printer directly connected to your local network;
OS that serves printers with the SMB protocol, including Samba printers (the necessary Samba components will be automatically installed in this case);
: for printers already connected to a computer running anURI) of the printer on your network. It can be used for any of the above remote connections and more. This is useful when your system administrator directly provided you the printer's URI.
: this option allows to directly enter the Universal Resource Identifier (hence