This is not a usual post but it can be useful for those who struggle installing a wi-fi printer without the setup CD on a mac. I just bought the canon mx 340 printer, unpacked it tonight and unfortunately I realized my CD reader didn’t work. So I couldn’t use the setup CD and go through the setting up of the wi-fi connection after setting up everything else before that. Here is what I did to make it work.
1- Go to the canon download page
2- Download the drivers of the printer : MX340 series CUPS Printer Driver Ver. 10.42.1.0 (Mac OS X 10.5/10.6) or the latest ones
3- Download Canon IJ Network Tool Ver. 3.0.0 (Mac OS X 10.4/10.5/10.6) – this utility will help adding the printer to the network
4- Install the 2 packages that you just downloaded
5- In finder go to the “go” menu at the top, select “Go to folder …” and type:
/Library/Printers/Canon/BJPrinter/Utilities
This is where the printer’s utilities you just downloaded were installed.
You should see this :
6- Double-click on “Canon IJ Network Tool”, it’s going to scan for printers. Since the printer is not yet added to the network it won’t find anything. The goal is to add the printer first on your network, and then on your computer in the system preferences. A dialog box will open saying that the printers connected via usb were not found. Just follow the instructions of the dialog box.
6.1- Connect the printer to the computer with the usb cable provided with the printer. Follow the paper guide to see how. Make sure the printer is on and click “Update” in the “Canon IJ Network Tool” dialog box. If it’s still not detected, turn off and on the printer. It might take few seconds before the usb connection is detected. To see that the printer is active, make sure the printer’s screen displays “100% A4 Std Ordinary paper” etc. (the standard text when the printer is ready to print) then click “Update” again.
6.2- Once the printer is detected, follow the instructions of the dialog box :
6.3- Another dialog box should open prompting you to add a printer. Go to the default tab and if the Canon printer doesn’t appear type “Canon” in the search box. Once found, select it and add it.
Once added the printer should look like this in your systems preferences > printers and fax section:
Try to print, it should work.
I hope it helps even if I couldn’t capture all the screenshots of the different steps. I couldn’t find much help on the Internet, the printer might be old or people usually have a working CD reader… But still, the setup software should be on the Internet by now, yet I didn’t find it on Canon’s page. What else is the Internet for if not to free ourselves from CDs and all that physical but digital stuff?
By the way, the getting started guide was very messy, printers are always so painful to set up, there is always a problem. What would be a world where printers were intelligent and fixed their problems alone?
