Chapter 12. Printing and Scanning with Your Mac

The idea of a paperless office was once the promise of the future. The workspace would be less cluttered, the trees had a little less to worry about, and there would be a lot less spent from your budget for paper and toner. Alas, as we are all too aware, that dream never came to pass. To be honest, I like having paper in hand, so the paperless office never quite held the appeal for me (or the majority of others, apparently) that it did for some. If anything, the technological advances of the 1980s ushered in a new age of even more printers, still more paper, toner, and ink being budgeted for, and sent fear into the hearts of every arbor on the planet.

The Mac has always been renowned for its printing capabilities, and that hasn't changed with its latest incarnation, Leopard. The print system in Leopard, CUPS (Common UNIX Printing System), is the most advanced ever used in a Mac OS, and is capable of handling many more printers right out of the box than ever before.

Getting something out of your Mac, in this case a print job, is one thing; getting something into your Mac, such as an image to print, is something else entirely. Thankfully Leopard is just as adept at scanning as it is at printing, so setting up and using a scanner is almost too simple, and in some cases may even be automatic.

Your Mac ...

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