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Bonjour for Wireless Mac & PC Printing

bonjour logoAs we slowly set up the office area in the new place, I wanted to hook my printer up to print wirelessly since we have two computers. Now my printer is nice, but it’s not a network printer and I didn’t spend the extra $30 or so to get a wireless router with a USB printing port, yet I knew that my Mac had options to share a printer over the network. So I turned on the printer sharing and went over to the PC (running Windows 2000) and it couldn’t find my printer. Then I remembered that Apple had released for Windows a few weeks back. A quick install and it found the printer no problem. Now the PC can print over the wireless network to the printer connected to my Mac. 😀


9 Responses

  1. nick says:

    What if the printe is set up on the Windows machine? I have a Intel iMac running on a wireless connection (through the same router as the Windows machine). The printer is set up on the Windows machine. What do I need to do to get the Mac to see the printer? Is it just a matter of installing Bonjour for Windows on the PC? Please help me if you can. Nick

  2. Thomas says:

    Nick, I think installing Bonjour on the PC should do it. But I no longer have a PC to try to see if it works.

  3. Anil says:

    I was really struggling to get my windows XP laprtop to print wirelessley to my Epson Photo Stylus R200 connected to my G5 iMAC via USB. The post here was the solution – I downloaded Bonjour from the Apple website, installed & ran it. I was astonished at how quickly Bojjour found the printer! All I then had to do is select the printer and hay presto, wireless printing from the laptop!!

    Thank you so much for the tip – it’s simple, fast and it works!!

    Regds, Anil.

  4. Thomas says:

    Glad to help. 🙂

  5. Marc says:

    Ok, so I installed Bonjour on my machine, and set up the sharing in the Mac and I STILL can’t see the printer on the windows machine.

    The PC runs Vista Home Premium w/ all the updates that have come out. The Mac (iBook) runs OS 10.3.9 and has all its shots (so to speak).

    The two machines are connected via wireless network to cable internet.
    So that’s broadband –> 802.11x router –> PC
    \–> MAC

    I’m pulling my hair out trying to get this to work and I’m just about at my wits end…to the point that I’ll deal with having two separate printers in my home office just to not deal with it. How can I get the printer to talk to both PC’s?

    I’d love it if someone could answer this in straightforward terms…I’m a windows guy, so I don’t really know Mac at all…Thanks in advance!

    ~Marc

  6. Thomas says:

    Marc, in my experiences 10.4.x worked great, but 10.3.x always gave me issues. Maybe it’s time to update the Mac’s OS?

  7. Vikram says:

    Would it work the other way? As in if I have a printer connected to a windows PC (XP) and set it up with bonjour then will my mac see it? If so how would I find it on my mac?

  8. someone says:

    refer to the top post!

  9. Bill in LA says:

    I have two PC’s and a couple laptops, all Windows 7, connected to an HP 2035n via Bonjour to an Airport Extreme USB connection to the HP and the discovery wasn’t a problem at all —
    But they ALL print a single job over and over and over until the job is deleted from the printer folder. A PC connected via ethernet literally repeats the printing as fast as the printer will allow – the wireless clients take a couple minutes between each repeat.
    There is nothing, anywhere, on Apple’s site about this –
    Help! Sharing the printer via a direct PC-USB connection defeats the wireless clients. Help me Obie Wan.

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