sharing a printer

Dear El Alquimista,
I was reading your response to the technical question regarding Print sharing.I have two desktops and want to print share . But which do you highly recommend over the other. To share directly through LAN or to keep the printer on the desktop and turn on print sharing.

a print server. But of course it costs extra bucks -- so you must do a cost/benefit determination for your particular situation.

Frank

A basic print server will cost about $40. A downside to a print server is they don't work with the wildly popular multi-function printers. If you have one of those, a print server will turn it into a plain printer-only. The scan and fax functions will be lost. Just something to consider if it applies to you.

dw

Thanks i will consider that b/c i have a all-in-one printer.
-artchick

PC is so ????? Its so hard on the PC to configure anything. I have the printer HP -all-in-one office jet 5510 directly connected to the Mac file and printer sharing is activated on that system.I installed the printer driver on the PC desktop. So when i try to print a page it says -->User printer offline?? i go to printer-->sharing-->share this printer and it stills says
-->User printer offline.

yeah i can share between both the mac and PC. could it be i set up th eprinter wrong?? I am a newbie to networking.I have the HP all-in-one connected to a USB on the Mac . I took the printer and installed it on the PC . Then i connected it back to the Mac. On both i have Printer share on .The Pc is showing printer offline

From the PC's perspective, the printer must be offline, no other choice available to it (the PC) to make about the printer's current state of mind. The printer isn't answering there at the other end of its USB port, which is how was told (when you installed the driver) it should be able to communicate with this particular printer.

Now, how did we get there? You unplugged the cable. Yes, I know you plugged the cable back into the MAC, but the PC doesn't know that. So what do we do next? That's the head scratcher, for me anyway.

Typically in a complete PC environment, the printer is connected to its usual host in the conventional manner. Another PC on the network wishes to use that printer. You go to the Add Printer wizard, tell the wizard you want to use a printer that is connected to another computer on the network, the wizard looks up and down the network to find all the printers that other computers have, and asks you which one you had in mind (and often there is only one other one). You say "yeah, that one", and the wizard then does what it needs to find an appropriated device driver and link to the networked printer.

In a mixed Mac/PC environment, I don't know right off hand what will happen during the "the wizard looks up and down the network to find all the printers" phase that I just described. Will Windows ask the right questions of the Mac? Will the Mac give the right answers back to the Windows? That I don't know because I haven't tried it, but I do think that is why your setup isn't behaving as you want it to.

dw

I tried going through the steps--> go to Add Printer wizard--> then select your printer to share -->i want to use a printer that is connected to another computer on the network, but when the wizard looks up and down the network to find all the printers that other computers have, it does not find my printer the HP all-in-one 5510. I tried this method first and it could not locate my printer . So i tried to install the printer to the PC so it can download the printer driver. I think you are right as far as the PC doesn't know that i plugged the printer back to the MAC.
-Thanks
artchick

... your PC doesn't know how to go about asking the Mac if it has a printer to share. Macs and PCs are much better at sharing files in recent years, but they each handle hardware peripherals so very differently that sharing peripherals over a network is still unsettled territory.

dw

each handle hardware peripherals so very differently which i agree. Thats why its harder for me to understand . I am a MAC person . I know how to use PCS but to troubleshoot or configure/add thats out of my territory.
I let you know if i can fix we'll see......