Running Pixma MP610 printer on Big Sur?

zack23

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Hi all - I've owned and refilled Canon printers for a long time, and am grateful for all the help I've received in this forum. I've just moved to an M1 Mac mini (running OS Big Sur of course), and am trying to figure out my options for continuing to use my MP610 printer. The ancient Canon driver no longer loads, presumably because it is 32-bit. The Gutenprint driver works, but seems to omit some printing modes and seems to offer no access to utilities including printer head cleaning and ink levels.

Are there any other options out there besides Gutenprint? And if not, is there anyway to perform head cleaning and head alignment with Gutenprint installed? Any help appreciated!
 

PeterBJ

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I don't know Mac computers but you can do head cleaning and head alignment from the printers menu on its screen. This is independent of OS, it even works without connection to a computer.
 

zack23

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Of course! Thank you both so much for reminding me! It's been so long since I've run these commands directly on the printer that I completely forgot it was possible.

Now I'm trying to figure out how to control the following options, which seem to be missing from Gutenprint:
Quality of printing (standard, high), also Greyscale Printing
Quality of paper (regular paper, photo paper matte, photo paper glossy, envelopes)
Duplex printing.

I don't believe these options can be accessed directly via the printer. Any ideas for work-arounds? Thank you again for the help!
 

stratman

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I don't believe these options can be accessed directly via the printer.
Not a Mac person. Did you look thoroughly at the functions available via the LCD?

-- Canon's initial announcement on driver compatible with Big Sur when the OS launches. Who knows what and when they will add to the list.

https://support.usa.canon.com/kb/index?page=content&id=FAQ100584


-- Found a thread concerning similar issue as yours but with a different printer. Maybe something here will be helpful, such as a reset or trying the most recent Mac OS driver version.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/252061564


-- As for Gutenprint... the driver is marked as "Experimental". All bets are off concerning functionality.

http://gimp-print.sourceforge.net/p_Supported_Printers.php


-- One workaround would be to emulate a windows environment and print via a Windows application.

https://www.howtogeek.com/187359/5-ways-to-run-windows-software-on-a-mac/
 

zack23

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Not a Mac person. Did you look thoroughly at the functions available via the LCD?

-- Canon's initial announcement on driver compatible with Big Sur when the OS launches. Who knows what and when they will add to the list.

https://support.usa.canon.com/kb/index?page=content&id=FAQ100584


-- Found a thread concerning similar issue as yours but with a different printer. Maybe something here will be helpful, such as a reset or trying the most recent Mac OS driver version.

https://discussions.apple.com/thread/252061564


-- As for Gutenprint... the driver is marked as "Experimental". All bets are off concerning functionality.

http://gimp-print.sourceforge.net/p_Supported_Printers.php


-- One workaround would be to emulate a windows environment and print via a Windows application.

https://www.howtogeek.com/187359/5-ways-to-run-windows-software-on-a-mac/
Thank you for the detailed reply Stratman! Basically, the problem is that Canon hasn't updated the official printer driver for the MP610 for years - the last officially supported Mac OS is Mountain Lion, which was 8 generations ago! The driver is 32-bit, and Big Sur is exclusively 64-bit (as was Catalina), which is why it won't even load into the new computer. I think the chances of Canon updating the driver are essentially nil.

The functions I am looking for definitely aren't available through the printer's LCD screen.

Good point that printing via a Windows environment might be a solution, but my understanding is that emulating Windows on an M1 Mac is currently not easy. This is likely to change in the future, but for now I think I need to work with Gutenprint.

I'm now guessing (though I don't know for sure) that the functions I'm looking for are supposed to be available through Gutenprint via a drop down menu at the bottom of the printer dialog box marked "Printer Features." Unfortunately, when I select this sub-menu it simply opens a blank space in the dialog box with no options shown (and if I'm printing from Word 2019, it causes Word to crash).

If anyone is familiar with Gutenprint and can offer any tips about how to access this "Printer Features" sub menu, that would be very helpful! Unfortunately, I suspect the problem may be an incompatibility with Big Sur that would require an updated version of Gutenprint to resolve.
 

zack23

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https://www.howtogeek.com/701733/can-you-run-windows-software-on-an-m1-mac/

Maybe CodeWeavers will work. Read the links in the article.
I just poked around a bit on the CodeWeavers website, and unfortunately there are several references to CrossOver not working with printer drivers - the only printers that can be accessed are the printers already active on the host operating system.

I think that running Windows virtually on an M1 will be much easier within the next month or two, and this may well be the way to go. Or perhaps Gutenprint may be updated to eliminate any incompatibilities with Big Sur/M1. In the meantime, Gutenprint is working pretty well for basic text printing which is 95% of what I do with this printer anyway. And thanks to the help received here, I now realize that I can access printer utilities directly via the printer, so that problem is solved.

Hat, thanks for your suggestion but I'm planning to give my 2014 Mini to my wife and won't really have the option of using it for regular day-to-day printing. When I do any "serious" photo printing, I will reclaim it if necessary.

On a different but somewhat related note, I just discovered to my surprise that the original Canon ICA scanner printer for the MP610 actually works on Big Sur and the M1! So now I can use the MP610 for simple document scanning via Apple Image Capture and its basic controls. For serious photo scanning I will, as previously, have to pull out my 2009 Mac Mini and hook up my Epson flatbed and Nikon film scanners, using the 2009 Mini's Snow Leopard and Leopard partitions :)
 
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