3.5 Adding Printer Drivers

A printer driver or PostScript* Printer Description (PPD) file is a software entity that directly supports a physical printer, enabling it to carry out its functions.

Hardware vendors develop printer drivers and PPD files, which are specific to each printer. Most printers require different printer drivers for each operating system they interact with. You can view a complete list of printer drivers currently stored in a Broker, and you can add additional printer drivers from diskettes, CDs, and the workstation operating system.

The Broker must be running in order to add printer drivers, and the iPrint Client must be installed on a Linux or Windows workstation. To install the Client, go to http://server_IP_address/ipp and click the Install iPrint Client link. For more information on installing the client, see Section 4.0, Setting Up iPrint on Client Workstations. For a review of supported browsers and driver upload operations, see Section A.2, Supported Browsers with the iPrint Plug-In and Novell iManager.

To add printer drivers to the Broker:

  1. In Novell iManager, click Manage Broker, then browse to and select the Broker you want.

  2. Click Drivers, then select the client platform you want to work with.

  3. Do one of the following:

    • Click Add from File to add drivers from a printer driver .inf file.

    • Click Add from System to add drivers from the workstation you are running iManager from.

      The drivers installed on your workstation are made available for upload to the Broker. You can upload only drivers for the same platform as the workstation.

  4. Select the driver you want, then click OK.

  5. Click OK to save your changes.

You can also install driver files from a Linux console prompt using iprntcmd command. See Section 4.5, Using iprntcmd on Linux and Macintosh for more information.