Using a Canon Pixma MP640 over Wi-Fi with Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard
So I bought myself a Canon Pixma MP640. It’s just
about the perfect multi-function device, with
stellar print quality, separate ink tanks –
including a second black for text – Wi-Fi
(and Ethernet and USB), duplex, and the ability
to print onto CDs and DVDs. It doesn’t have a
document feeder, a fax, or the dedicated grey
cartridge of its big brother for beautiful
mono photos, but for around £140/$160, it’s a sodding brilliant
device.
There’s just one problem: the installer doesn’t like Snow Leopard, at least if you want to use it on Wi-Fi. It’s easily remedied, however, and in fact, even when Canon gets round to updating the installers, I’d still recommend this method simply because it doesn’t clutter your Mac with relatively low-quality Canon ‘value-add’ software. It’s likely that this process will work with all recent Wi-Fi MFDs from Canon, but I’ve only tried it with the MP640.
01 CONFIGURE THE PRINTER FOR YOUR WI-FI NETWORK After you’ve unpacked the printer, installed the print head and cartridges, and run through the calibration process, use the Easy-Scroll Wheel to go to the settings menu on the printer, and join it to your Wi-Fi network.
02 PLUG IN OVER USB Snow Leopard has a new (Windows-like; shhh!) feature that will automatically grab printer drivers; plug the (switched on) MP640 into your Mac over USB – don’t worry, this is only temporary – and when the OS pops up a message asking you if you want to download and install the software for it, click Install.
03 ALLOW THE MAC TO INSTALL THE DRIVERS Will take it a while to find, download and install; be patient!
04 ADD THE PRINTER Now launch System Preferences and click the Print & Fax icon. You can delete the newly-added printer from the list (and disconnect the USB cable) unless you also want to be able to print/scan over USB as well as Wi-Fi. Click the + icon and up pops the window below; ignore the Bonjour scanner for the moment. Wait a few more seconds, and a second entry will appear, this time of the kind ‘canonijnetwork’. (The name for yours will be different; I changed the Bonjour Service Name prior to starting by connecting to the printer from Safari’s Bonjour browser; this is unimportant, however.) Select that printer then click Add.
05 WI-FI SCANNING You can also scan over Wi-Fi. You don’t actually need to do anything extra here. You can fire up Image Capture and, after a few seconds, your MP640 will appear under Shared devices. You can, though, repeat step four, selecting the Bonjour scanner in the screen above, which will give you a wireless scanner ‘app’ – complete with pretty icon for the Dock – that you can double-click to launch from the Print & Fax pane, then choose optionally to keep in your Dock. It’s actually reasonably accomplished, too, though the full proper scanner driver – part of the MP Navigator EX program, that you may be able to install separately; I didn’t try – offers more control over variables such as descreen.
BONUS TIP
One thing you might miss from the official
package is the ability to print directly onto
CDs and DVDs. (Well I say “miss”, but Canon’s
CD-printing utility is dreadful.) Happily,
Disc Cover from the Ukrainian
geniuses at BeLight Software is compatible,
and it is a joy to use. If you don’t already own
a copy, it’s $35 well spent, but if you have a
recent version of Roxio Toast, you probably have a
lite edition already; have a look in your Toast
Titanium folder. In my testing, using some
printable Sony CD-Rs, I got better results –
less bleed, in other words – by picking
Printable Disc rather than Standard for the
Sizes option, but once you’ve designed your
label, you just have to choose Direct to CD/DVD
printing, and the Canon Tray Type F,G (CD Tray)
preset. (Look at the CD tray that came with the
printer; it’s got a big G at the bottom left.)
Overall, though, I’m delighted with the MP640; I installed from the enclosed CD on a Mac running Mac OS X 10.4, another running Mac OS X 10.5, and a PC running Windows XP without incident. And, like I say, I actually prefer the purity of my two Snow Leopard systems, which are free of Canon crapware.
Please do Digg, Stumble, tweet and, best of all, link to this post so that anyone having trouble can easily get their MP640 up and running with 10.6 on a wireless network!
There’s just one problem: the installer doesn’t like Snow Leopard, at least if you want to use it on Wi-Fi. It’s easily remedied, however, and in fact, even when Canon gets round to updating the installers, I’d still recommend this method simply because it doesn’t clutter your Mac with relatively low-quality Canon ‘value-add’ software. It’s likely that this process will work with all recent Wi-Fi MFDs from Canon, but I’ve only tried it with the MP640.
01 CONFIGURE THE PRINTER FOR YOUR WI-FI NETWORK After you’ve unpacked the printer, installed the print head and cartridges, and run through the calibration process, use the Easy-Scroll Wheel to go to the settings menu on the printer, and join it to your Wi-Fi network.
02 PLUG IN OVER USB Snow Leopard has a new (Windows-like; shhh!) feature that will automatically grab printer drivers; plug the (switched on) MP640 into your Mac over USB – don’t worry, this is only temporary – and when the OS pops up a message asking you if you want to download and install the software for it, click Install.
03 ALLOW THE MAC TO INSTALL THE DRIVERS Will take it a while to find, download and install; be patient!
04 ADD THE PRINTER Now launch System Preferences and click the Print & Fax icon. You can delete the newly-added printer from the list (and disconnect the USB cable) unless you also want to be able to print/scan over USB as well as Wi-Fi. Click the + icon and up pops the window below; ignore the Bonjour scanner for the moment. Wait a few more seconds, and a second entry will appear, this time of the kind ‘canonijnetwork’. (The name for yours will be different; I changed the Bonjour Service Name prior to starting by connecting to the printer from Safari’s Bonjour browser; this is unimportant, however.) Select that printer then click Add.
05 WI-FI SCANNING You can also scan over Wi-Fi. You don’t actually need to do anything extra here. You can fire up Image Capture and, after a few seconds, your MP640 will appear under Shared devices. You can, though, repeat step four, selecting the Bonjour scanner in the screen above, which will give you a wireless scanner ‘app’ – complete with pretty icon for the Dock – that you can double-click to launch from the Print & Fax pane, then choose optionally to keep in your Dock. It’s actually reasonably accomplished, too, though the full proper scanner driver – part of the MP Navigator EX program, that you may be able to install separately; I didn’t try – offers more control over variables such as descreen.
Overall, though, I’m delighted with the MP640; I installed from the enclosed CD on a Mac running Mac OS X 10.4, another running Mac OS X 10.5, and a PC running Windows XP without incident. And, like I say, I actually prefer the purity of my two Snow Leopard systems, which are free of Canon crapware.
Please do Digg, Stumble, tweet and, best of all, link to this post so that anyone having trouble can easily get their MP640 up and running with 10.6 on a wireless network!
