I bought a Ricoh SP111 Laser printer and unfortunately it is only USB and having experienced WiFi printing, it proved to be a serious inconvenience.
I bought Raspi Zero W to make my printer available over WiFi. Basic idea was to have the RasPi as a Linux print server running CUPS.
There are several details available on the internet on how to do this. But I had to struggle to get it working in the end, due to some missing subtle details. The following steps were done to make it work.
1. Install Raspbian Stretch Lite. (Followed this blog post https://www.losant.com/blog/getting-started-with-the-raspberry-pi-zero-w-without-a-monitor). The SSH and Wifi credentials are enabled/stored in the sd card, so that the PI will come up online after the first boot and available over network.
2. Install CUPS. (Followed this blog post https://rux.vc/2017.03/raspberry-pi-zero-print-scan-server/)Caveat ^^ Do not set the
3. Install Ricoh SP111 printer. (Followed this post https://askubuntu.com/questions/641405/ricoh-sp111-printer-setup-help)
4. Share the printer. Make Shared to Yes in /etc/cups/printers.conf
5. Install the printer in clients. I installed the printer in Windows 10. Followed this post (https://zedt.eu/tech/windows/installing-an-ipp-printer-in-windows-10/) Note that the Windows driver need to be downloaded from Ricoh website.
Enter Raspberry Pi Zero W !
I bought Raspi Zero W to make my printer available over WiFi. Basic idea was to have the RasPi as a Linux print server running CUPS.
There are several details available on the internet on how to do this. But I had to struggle to get it working in the end, due to some missing subtle details. The following steps were done to make it work.
1. Install Raspbian Stretch Lite. (Followed this blog post https://www.losant.com/blog/getting-started-with-the-raspberry-pi-zero-w-without-a-monitor). The SSH and Wifi credentials are enabled/stored in the sd card, so that the PI will come up online after the first boot and available over network.
2. Install CUPS. (Followed this blog post https://rux.vc/2017.03/raspberry-pi-zero-print-scan-server/)Caveat ^^ Do not set the
DefaultAuthType to None. Leave it to Basic, otherwise it is not possible to Add Printer via the web interface.3. Install Ricoh SP111 printer. (Followed this post https://askubuntu.com/questions/641405/ricoh-sp111-printer-setup-help)
4. Share the printer. Make Shared to Yes in /etc/cups/printers.conf
5. Install the printer in clients. I installed the printer in Windows 10. Followed this post (https://zedt.eu/tech/windows/installing-an-ipp-printer-in-windows-10/) Note that the Windows driver need to be downloaded from Ricoh website.
PDF Trouble
I was able to print from Word but the PDFs were not printing. The CUPS log says that the print job is sent to printer. There is no error whatsoever, but no print out. Tried various setting in Adobe Reader (where I opened the PDF) print setting. Finally only when I opted for "Print As Image" the print came out.
