Generic Pcl Laser Printer Driver Mac Download Updated

Generic Pcl Laser Printer Driver Mac Download

Hello all,

It's been a while since I've posted, so I'k happy to exist dorsum. I took a fiddling break after Jamf 300 training, but now that the summertime is winding downwardly, I'thousand prepare to start posting again. In my concluding write upward I had mentioned going over managing printers in Jamf (or at to the lowest degree how I practise it) in a futurity set of posts. I'll become to that soon enough, but I figured I'd outset off with something a bit easier.

If you lot attempt to install a printer in macOS, you lot have some options as far as what commuter you use. Most printers that connect directly over USB simply find the manufacturer's respective driver automatically and you never really have to mess with it. Only if yous manually get to System Preferences > Printers and Scanners > + and attempt to add together a printer that is accessible via directly connection or over the network, you lot'll get some options at the bottom that await like this:

Printer Drivers.png

Listed are options for both generic PostScript and PCL drivers. The generic drivers are useful if macOS cannot find the right commuter, if the printer'due south commuter is no longer compatible with the latest version of macOS, etc. That being said, information technology can be helpful as an admin to know how to script installations of printers using these drivers in certain situations.

Earlier we become to that, some random words of alert: 1) Generic drivers typically practise not give you all of the options available for a printer (Although you unremarkably can enable duplex press). 2) It'due south rare, simply some printers don't natively support the PostScript language. Large copier-type printers sometimes demand an additional PostScript carte du jour installed. If your printer doesn't support PostScript, y'all'll have to use the generic PCL commuter for those printers. 3) PostScript can do both color and blackness & white, but PCL tin only do black & white. iv) If you are using budgeting software like PaperCut, the generic PostScript driver only sends everything every bit colour (from my testing). So information technology may non be the best selection in your environment since it will register everything as a color impress.

Now that we have all of that out of the way, here's where you can find the generic PostScript driver:

/System/Library/Frameworks/ApplicationServices.framework/Versions/A/Frameworks/PrintCore.framework/Versions/A/Resources/Generic.ppd

Y'all tin can bake this into a script directly, or copy information technology somewhere that's a piddling easier to deal with and point to that location.

The generic PCL driver isn't then friendly. Information technology really doesn't exist anywhere in macOS by default. Instead, the driver is generated at the time of installation. Luckily, you can generate it manually by running this:

/usr/libexec/cups/daemon/cups-driverd true cat drv:///sample.drv/generpcl.ppd >> /tmp/genericpcl.ppd

…Or specify whatsoever location yous wish to spit out the driver to. I've run into complications earlier with hanging onto a PCL driver that I generated some fourth dimension agone, so I suggest generating a new generic PCL driver every fourth dimension you perform an installation. It'south easy enough to add the generation to your script so information technology happens every time.

Once you have the driver you need, yous tin utilize /usr/bin/lpadmin to install the printer. This is where I stop and save roofing lpadmin for a future mail! I'll primarily be covering installing printers on a Windows print server using SMB, or direct IP printing over LPD. More on that next time.

Peace,
Joel