Printer Sharing

PhilipM

PhilipM

PhilipM

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Joined
11 Aug 2003
Posts
485
Location
UK
I'm planning to buy a Brother DCP-7040 - a printer/scanner combo. It only has a USB connector. I plan to have it in my wife's study, she runs a mac. I have a PC in a second room, hence I'd like to share the printer.

So I was thinking of a usb print server, however the device also comes with some nice scanning software which is PC only. So my question is - how do I get my PC to think that it is connected via a USB so that I can use the software?

Is there USB over powerline, or USB over wifi or something like that I can use?

Thanks,
Philip
 
it would be easier to connect to pc and share so the mac could use it. I doubt the software would function correctly the other way round, you could perhaps try but I've never got usb extending stuff to work very well and it's expensive.
 
3dcandy said:
it would be easier to connect to pc and share so the mac could use it. I doubt the software would function correctly the other way round, you could perhaps try but I've never got usb extending stuff to work very well and it's expensive.
Click to expand...

+1
 
i got mine going between the pc and laptop both on win7 (both have to be switched on ) but i guess thats a lot easier than sharing with a mac, dunno there would like to know as maybe getting a mac for the missus soon.
 
An easier approach all round would be to choose a printer with an ethernet port. USB print server + usb printer is likely to cost more than just getting a network printer.
 
fleabay could get you a cheap usb > network adapter, but you'll miss out on the scanning side of things. Believe me, it's so much easier to go connected to pc and then shared to print from mac...
 
Have to agree with Whitecrook, & others it's a lot easier than setting up printer servers.
I have a Canon multifunction device, uses 5 individual ink cartridges, has ethernet,was simple to set up.

Canon has a new range of multifunction devices out , been looking them, wondering whether to replace my aging multifunction.
 
Thanks all. I went for a WiFi ready Brother multifunction. It is inkjet, but I've bought a refillable kit, so it should be reasonable to run. It's a bit of a compromise on the printing front (not quite as crisp as a laser, nor as good as a canon photo printer), but it was very simple on WiFi and works perfectly. Job done.
 
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