OS X Mountain Lion Server For Dummies

Chapter 9

Sharing Printers over a Network

In This Chapter

Understanding printer sharing

Creating shared printer pools for balancing loads

Using System Preferences and CUPS to share and manage printers

Keeping track of print jobs and printers

Helping Mac, Windows, and Linux/Unix clients print

Printer sharing, or print serving, is a useful feature for both users and network administrators. For users, a print server eliminates waiting for a printer when it’s busy. For administrators, a print server provides management tools that can keep track of how often different printers are used and who’s using them, as well as keep track of print errors.

OS X Server allows you to set up a shared print queue for any printer. When a user presses the Print button, the print job goes not to the printer but to the shared print queue on the server. The print server feeds print jobs in the queue to the printer one at a time. You can also schedule printing and assign priority.

Mountain Lion Server includes ...