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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?
You do indeed require a PS card to print from said devices, however:
mp5054 postscript card - Google Search
It's 106 miles to Chicago. We've got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it's dark and we're wearing sunglasses.
Hit it.
Is there no other method to print from macOS or iOS to the copier?Originally Posted by TonerMunkeh
Maybe using an open source driver?
P.S. They told me about Gutenprint drivers, could they be useful to me?
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.
It's 106 miles to Chicago. We've got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it's dark and we're wearing sunglasses.
Hit it.
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.
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Last edited by rthonpm; 11-11-2022 at 03:55 PM. Reason: Additional details
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.
Re: print from macOS and iOS to a RICOH MP 5054
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.
“I think you should treat good friends like a fine wine. That’s why I keep mine locked up in the basement.” - Tim Hawkins
Agreed with Slimslob. And I've used the generic PCL driver on several Macbooks. It does work.
Does PCL Driver support user codes?
I'm trying with the lpoptions command but I can't specify an address book user code.
Last edited by nicovon; 11-12-2022 at 12:17 PM.
You need a real driver for the model to get user codes. No Postscript, no user codes.
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