After selecting the queue type of the printer, the next step in adding a
printer is to select the print driver.
You will see a window similar to Figure 21-13. If you are configuring a local
printer, select the print driver from the list. The printers are
divided by manufacturers. Click the arrow beside the manufacturer for
your printer. Find your printer from the expanded list, and click the
arrow beside the printer name. A list of drivers for your printer will
appear. Select one. If you do not know which one to use, select the
first one in the list. If you are having problems using that driver,
edit the print queue in printconf and select
a different driver.
As shown in Figure 21-14, the print driver
processes the data that you want to print into a format the printer can
understand. Since a local printer is attached directly to your computer,
you need to select a print driver to process the data that is sent to
the printer.
If you are configuring a remote printer (LPD, SMB, or NCP), the remote
print server usually has its own print driver. If you select an
additional print driver on your local computer, the data will be
filtered more than once, and the data will be converted to a format that
the printer can not understand.
To make sure the data is not filtered more than once, first try
selecting Raw Print Queue or Postscript
Printer if you are configuring a remote printer. After
applying the changes, print a test page to test this configuration. If
the test fails, the remote print server might not have a print driver
configured. Try selecting a print driver according to the manufacturer
and model of the remote printer, applying the changes, and printing a
test page.
The last step is to confirm your printer configuration. Click
Finish if this is the printer that you want to
add. Click Back to modify the printer
configuration.
Click the Apply button in the main window to save
your changes to the /etc/printcap configuration
file and restart the printer daemon (lpd). After
applying the changes, print a test page to ensure the configuration is
correct. Refer to the section called Printing a Test Page for details.
If you need to print characters beyond the basic ASCII set (including
those used for languages such as Japanese), you need to go to your
driver options and select Rerender
Postscript. Refer to the section called Modifying Existing Printers for
details. You can also configure options such as paper size if you edit
the print queue after adding it.
