Employees may wish to use their own Mac computer while working at BCIT, and as such may need to be able to print to BCIT printers. Because a non-BCIT computer will not be joined to BCIT’s Active Directory, a few additional steps are required to get printers installed and configured. This KB Article explains the steps needed to connect to and configure BCIT printers from a Mac.
- From the Apple menu, select System Preferences.
- Open Print and Fax.
- Click the + button to add a new printer.
- Control‐click (or right‐click) the toolbar and select Customize Toolbar.
- Drag the Advanced icon onto the toolbar, click Done.
- On the toolbar, click the newly added Advanced button.
- From the Type drop‐down menu, select Windows printer via spoolss.
- In the URL: field, enter the address of the printer you want to install.
- The printer address will be the server name ‘smb://gutenberg.ad.bcit.ca/’ plus the print queue name. To add the printer SE12-200-MPC6004 use: smb://gutenberg.ad.bcit.ca/SE12-200-MPC6004
- If your printer name includes spaces, they must be replaced by the delimiter ‘%20’. To add SE12 200 LXMT642, use: smb://gutenberg.ad.bcit.ca/SE12%20200%20LXMT642
- Note: The print queue name can be found by looking on a Windows PC with the queue already mapped, or if it is a newer Ricoh device the printer name can be found in the System Message area at the top of the home screen:
- From the Use drop down, select either Generic PostScript Printer or if you have downloaded the specific driver from the manufacturer’s website, use that.
- Click Add.
- The first time you send a job to the newly added printer, you will be prompted for a username and password.
- Important: Enter only the prefix for your BCIT email address (the part before @bcit.ca) and your usual BCIT password. Example: If your BCIT email address were asmith948@bcit.ca, you would enter asmith948 as the username.
- Check the box labeled “Remember this password in my keychain” in order to prevent this message from appearing every time.
Additionally, for macOS systems 11.0 (Big Sur) or higher, you will also need to do the following steps:
- Open Terminal and run the following command:
cupsctl WebInterface=yes
- Open a web browser and type “localhost:631”
- Go to Printers > Select the Printer > Modify Printer.
- Enter the local username and password (the credentials you use to sign into the Mac).
- Select Windows printer via spools.
- Add “?encryption=no” to the end of the printer URL in the Connection field.
- Click Finish.