print from macOS and iOS to a RICOH MP 5054

[nicovon]

I have a RICOH MP 5054
The technicians who installed the copier told me that to print from macOS and iOS you need to install a physical SD card inside the copier.
This SD card contains the Postscript driver which is proprietary.
For this reason the SD card costs more than the machine itself.
Can you confirm these statements for me?

[TonerMunkeh]

Re: print from macOS and iOS to a RICOH MP 5054

You do indeed require a PS card to print from said devices, however:

mp5054 postscript card - Google Search

[nicovon]

Re: print from macOS and iOS to a RICOH MP 5054

You do indeed require a PS card to print from said devices, however:

mp5054 postscript card - Google Search

Is there no other method to print from macOS or iOS to the copier?
Maybe using an open source driver?


P.S. They told me about Gutenprint drivers, could they be useful to me?

[TonerMunkeh]

Re: print from macOS and iOS to a RICOH MP 5054

Gutenprint is an option and will make the machine print but it is heavily defeatured. There's one of those cards on there for $19, well worth the proper compatibility and functionality.

[rthonpm]

Re: print from macOS and iOS to a RICOH MP 5054

Ricoh licenses their Postscript features from Adobe, unlike say HP which uses an often buggy emulation of the language. This has advantages in that firmware and feature support are from the source of the language.

Gutenprint and other similar drivers are not officially supported and often lack all of the features of the device. Did you make it clear going into the sale that Apple devices were in the environment? If so, and they still offered you machines without Postscript, then you found a terrible service provider. One of the first questions we ask for any printing is what types of devices will be used. As soon as MacOS or Linux is mentioned, then Postscript becomes a requirement.

Adding the SD card isn't that expensive from reputable second-hand sources and offers you the full feature set of the device.

Sent from my Pixel 6 Pro using Tapatalk

[slimslob]

Re: print from macOS and iOS to a RICOH MP 5054

The MP 5054 comes with Adobe PDF Direct Which is PostScript stripped of its licensing. Unless it is turned off it will support extremely limited printing form macOS. What it supports is based on Apple's licensing limits and not Ricoh. The only thing on the PS3 SD card is the license.

macOS should include Generic PCL. It allows you to print to any PCL printer. Its only draw back is that it is generic and does not know about any of the peripheral options like paper banks and finishers.

[KenB]

Re: print from macOS and iOS to a RICOH MP 5054

Ricoh licenses their Postscript features from Adobe, unlike say HP which uses an often buggy emulation of the language. This has advantages in that firmware and feature support are from the source of the language.

Gutenprint and other similar drivers are not officially supported and often lack all of the features of the device. Did you make it clear going into the sale that Apple devices were in the environment? If so, and they still offered you machines without Postscript, then you found a terrible service provider. One of the first questions we ask for any printing is what types of devices will be used. As soon as MacOS or Linux is mentioned, then Postscript becomes a requirement.

Adding the SD card isn't that expensive from reputable second-hand sources and offers you the full feature set of the device.

Sent from my Pixel 6 Pro using Tapatalk

I’ve played with the Gutenprint diver a few times over the years, and had very limited success.

Not only can you get issues with peripheral support, but things like fonts, color accuracy and speed suffer horribly. User codes aren’t an option at all.

On top of all that, Ricoh (or their dealers) can’t possibly support it.

I once had a third party IT guy call me “incompetent” because I refused to install “drivers that were on the Internet”. What an ass.

I couldn’t even count the number of times sales reps conveniently “forgot” to ask if there were any Macs, mobile devices, Linux, or any other “non-windows” devices in the environment. That would include the boss who printed once or twice a week from his MacBook, as in the above example.

[KeviM]

Re: print from macOS and iOS to a RICOH MP 5054

The MP 5054 comes with Adobe PDF Direct Which is PostScript stripped of its licensing. Unless it is turned off it will support extremely limited printing form macOS. What it supports is based on Apple's licensing limits and not Ricoh. The only thing on the PS3 SD card is the license.

macOS should include Generic PCL. It allows you to print to any PCL printer. Its only draw back is that it is generic and does not know about any of the peripheral options like paper banks and finishers.

Agreed with Slimslob. And I've used the generic PCL driver on several Macbooks. It does work.

[nicovon]

Re: print from macOS and iOS to a RICOH MP 5054

The MP 5054 comes with Adobe PDF Direct Which is PostScript stripped of its licensing. Unless it is turned off it will support extremely limited printing form macOS. What it supports is based on Apple's licensing limits and not Ricoh. The only thing on the PS3 SD card is the license.

macOS should include Generic PCL. It allows you to print to any PCL printer. Its only draw back is that it is generic and does not know about any of the peripheral options like paper banks and finishers.

Does PCL Driver support user codes?
I'm trying with the lpoptions command but I can't specify an address book user code.

[rthonpm]

Re: print from macOS and iOS to a RICOH MP 5054

Does PCL Driver support user codes?

You need a real driver for the model to get user codes. No Postscript, no user codes.

Sent from my Pixel 6 Pro using Tapatalk

[emiliorsg]

Re: print from macOS and iOS to a RICOH MP 5054

With airprint the mac will be able to print, but for functions in the controller like user codes etc. you will need a postscript card.

[dalewb74]

Re: print from macOS and iOS to a RICOH MP 5054

the sd card with the ps on it doesn't cost anywhere near the cost of the copier itself. last i knew it was less than a couple hundred.

[tonerhead]

Re: print from macOS and iOS to a RICOH MP 5054

Spend the extra and get postscript card. No one in this forum is trying to cheat you. Other vendors including Ricoh have tried to emulate postscript, but there are some kickbacks. Maybe Apple just needs to get with the other 97% of computers that use PCL or Adobe needs to freely license PS3. If you are too cheap, you could try ghostscript or openprinting.org. Neither of these will give you access codes though.