Hey y’all,
We’re looking to move towards using more Mac’s with the hope of moving to 90/10 mac/win. In order to make this transition feasible and realistic we’re hoping to automate large portions of the install/setup process. A large part of this is in the printers. Currently we’re having to install the drivers, and then installing the printer. Do any of you use a script to do this all in ‘one click’?
Thanks for your help. I look forward to hearing back!
Luke
Hi
Have you looked at Apple Remote Desktop? It offers a tool to push software to the clients. Here is a tutorial (I have not followed this tutorial myself.)
Another option is to use a MDM like Munki
You can script almost anything. Hard part is if the printer driver installer is a crap or not.
What manufacturer for printers?
Print server or direct ip?
Are you doing complicated accounting codes etc etc?
Hey! So currently we’re using Sharp MX series, and the printers are on a print server. There aren’t any kind of permissions/account passwords associated with printers. The only kind of restriction with the printers is being connected to our Staff AP.
Check out the event schedule from the recent citn conference. James Grissom did a workshop on automation and one of his examples was a script for doing exactly what you’re talking about. I’m pretty sure he posted his notes and example scripts on the sched website.
Amazing! I’ll go check that out. Thank you for taking the time to respond!
So good news is the installer for the Sharp models are good. The bad news is that they lag way behind on supporting changes in the macOS print environment.
Here’s a link to help you created lpadmin options from a manually created printer: http://www.brunerd.com/blog/2012/03/13/getting-and-setting-ppd-options-via-command-line-for-use-with-lpadmin-in-os-x/
The next question is why use a print server if there’s no user auth on the printer? Planning for future maybe? Direct IP might be for you.
I use a home brewed automator app to install my xerox MFPs. I usually install the Xerox printer driver bundle dmg file from Apple’s download’s site and then I run my custom app (really just a package of scripts that I created in automator on a mac. I’ve got an environment where there are about a dozen different xerox printers that span 4-5 different models and different drivers. So I’ve set the app up to allow me to choose which printer to setup. It’s way faster than manually configuring and installing each printer on its own and then setting printer defaults. I don’t use a print server with my macs - just the windows clients use one. Works slick and I’ve been using it for 3 years now and haven’t had to change a thing in those years.
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