High quality drivers for Canon, Epson, Lexmark, Sony, Olympus, andPCL printers for use with CUPS andGIMP.
Guten Print Driver Mac Os X El Capitan 10 11 6
Gutenprint was formerly called Gimp-Print.Gimp-Print 4.2.7 (the last Gimp-Print 4.2 release) is still availablefor distribution, but is no longer supported. You may install bothGimp-Print 4.2.7 and Gutenprint 5.0, 5.1, 5.2, and/or 5.3 concurrentlyand choose which to use. We recommend that users use either thelatest 5.2 release or the new 5.3; older versions of Gutenprint are nolonger supported.
The new OS from Mac is here in OS X El Capitan. Apple's 12th OS release is the OS X El Capitan.Named after a rock formation in the Yosemite National Park, USA, OS X El Capitan continues and focuses on stability, performance and security in which OS X Yosemite started. With this new OS, you can enjoy multitasking in full screen with Split View, control your desktop without overlapping with. How to install OS X El Capitan How to make a bootable OS X 10.11 El Capitan installer drive Note: When you purchase something after clicking links in our articles, we may earn a small commission.
Macintosh OS XUsers!
There is now a Gutenprint webpage for OS X that answers most questions on how to use Gutenprintand Gimp-Print with OS X 10.2 'Jaguar' and beyond, and provides directdownload links.
Installation problems on MacOS 10.15 'Catalina'
We are aware of installation problems on MacOS 10.15 'Catalina'. Unfortunately, we do not have a solution at this time. We will update this as appropriate.
We do not know whether Gutenprint will function on Catalina. If you choose to upgrade and rely on Gutenprint, please unerstand that that is at your own risk.
Gutenprint 5.3.3 is available!
New as of August 25, 2019!The Gutenprint project is pleased to announce Gutenprint 5.3.3. This package is available in source form, and also in binary installer form for Macintosh OS X (10.6 or later, 64 bit only). Youcan read the release notes and download it here.
Gutenprint 5.2.15 is available!
New as of June 12, 2019!The Gutenprint project is pleased to announce Gutenprint 5.2.15, the last planned release of Gutenprint 5.2. Future releases will be based on Gutenprint 5.3. This release supports a few new printers, but is primarily to fix Macintosh OS X issues. This package is available in source form, and also in binary installer form for Macintosh OS X (10.6 or later, 64 bit only). Youcan read the release notes and download it here.
Gutenprint 5.3.1 is available!
New as of September 22, 2018!The Gutenprint project is pleased to announce Gutenprint 5.3.0. This is the first 5.3 release. It includes a number of internal changes, including more precise positioning and sizing. It may be installed alongside Gutenprint 5.2. It also offers support additional printers; please consult the release notes for specifics. It is currently available in source form. A Macintosh installer package may be made available later; the Macintosh continues as a supported platform for Gutenprint. Youcan read the release notes and download it here.
Gutenprint 5.2.14 is available!
New as of April 23, 2018!The Gutenprint project is pleased to announce Gutenprint 5.2.14. This release adds full color support for most color laser printers, fixes some important bugs, adds support for additional printers, and offers improvements for others. This package is available in source form, and also in binary installer form for Macintosh OS X. Youcan read the release notes and download it here.
Guten Print Driver Mac Os X El Capitan
Gutenprint 5.2.13 is available!
New as of July 17,2017!The Gutenprint project is pleased to announce Gutenprint 5.2.13. This release fixes some important bugs, adds support for additional printers, and offers improvements for others. This package is available in source form, and also in binary installer form for Macintosh OS X. Youcan read the release notes and download it here.
Gutenprint 5.2.12 is available!
New as of January 19,2017!The Gutenprint project is pleased to announce Gutenprint 5.2.12. This release adds support for many new printers and other improvements over 5.2.11. Note that the Foomatic data generator and the Ghostscript IJS driver have been removed as CUPS support is ubiquitous and Foomatic is not needed with CUPS. This package is available in source form, and also in binary installer form for Macintosh OS X (10.6 and above; 10.5 and below are no longer supported). Youcan read the release notes and download it here.
Gutenprint 5.2.11 is available!
New as of January 15,2016!The Gutenprint project is pleased to announce Gutenprint 5.2.11. This release adds support for many new printers (in particular Datamax-O'Neil label printers, more dye sublimation printers, and more Canon inkjets) and other improvements over 5.2.10. The main impact is for developers that link against the Gutenprint library. This package is available in source form, and also in binary installer form for Macintosh OS X (10.6 and above; 10.5 and below are no longer supported). Youcan read the release notes and download it here.
Gutenprint 5.2.10 is released!
New as of May 20,2014! After a very long hiatus, the Gutenprint project is pleased to announce Gutenprint 5.2.10, a stable release of 5.2. This release adds support for many new printers and other improvements over 5.2.9. The main impact is for developers that link against the Gutenprint library. An updated German translation and improvement for some Epson and Canon media handling are also included. This package is available in source form, and also in binary installer form for Macintosh OS X (10.5 and above; 10.4 and below are no longer supported). Youcan read the release notes and download it here.
Gutenprint 5.2.9 is released!
New as of July 7, 2012! The Gutenprint project is pleased toannounce Gutenprint 5.2.9, a stable release of 5.2. This release fixes a several bugs from 5.2.8. The main impact is for developers that link against the Gutenprint library. An updated German translation and improvement for some Epson and Caonon media handling are also included. This package is availablein source form, and also in binary installer formfor Macintosh OS X (10.3 and above). Youcan read the release notes and download it here.
Gutenprint 5.2.8 is released!
New as of June 11, 2012! The Gutenprint project is pleased toannounce Gutenprint 5.2.8, a stable release of 5.2. The Canon driver has been significantly overhauled for this release, and output (and in some cases functionality) may be significantly different from previous releases. We expect to perform further work in future releases. Also, an additional eighteen new Epson printers has been added. This package is availablein source form, and also in binary installer formfor Macintosh OS X (10.3 and above). Youcan read the release notes and download it here.
Gutenprint 5.2.7 is released!
New as of May 2, 2011! The Gutenprint project is pleased toannounce Gutenprint 5.2.7, a stable release of 5.2. This release offers support for more than 80 additional printers from Canon, Epson, and Kodak. There are also some changes for other Epson printers. This package is availablein source form, and also in binary installer formfor Macintosh OS X (10.3 and above). Youcan read the release notes and download it here.
Gutenprint is Sourceforge Project of theMonth for November, 2010!
New as of November 16,2010! The Gutenprint project is honored to havebeen selected Sourceforge Project of the Month for November, 2010.Please see the announcement athttp://sourceforge.net/blog/potm-201011/.
Gutenprint 5.2.6 is released!
New as of August 10,2010! The Gutenprint project is pleased toannounce Gutenprint 5.2.6, a stable release of 5.2. This releaseoffers additional support for Epson Stylus Pro printers, along withsome changes for other Epson printers and support for additional Canoninkjets and PCL laser printers over 5.2.5. This package is availablein source form, and also in binary installer formfor Macintosh OS X (10.3 and above). Youcan read the release notes and download it here.
Gutenprint 5.2.5 is released!
New as of February 11,2010! The Gutenprint project is pleased toannounce Gutenprint 5.2.5, a stable release of 5.2. This releaseoffers several fixes, new features, and support for new printers over5.2.4. This package is available in source form, and also in binaryinstaller form for Macintosh OS X (10.3 and above). Youcan read the release notes and download it here.
Gutenprint 5.2.4 is released!
New as of July 29,2009! The Gutenprint project is pleased toannounce Gutenprint 5.2.4, a stable release of 5.2. This releaseoffers several fixes, new features, and support for new printers for5.2.3. This package is available in source form, and in binaryinstaller form for Macintosh OS X (10.3 and above). Youcan read the release notes and download it here.
Gutenprint 5.2.3 is released!
New as of December 22,2008! The Gutenprint project is pleased toannounce Gutenprint 5.2.3, a stable bugfix release of 5.2. Thisrelease offers several important fixes for 5.2.2. This package isavailable in source form, and in binary installer form for MacintoshOS X (10.3 and above). Youcan read the release notes and download it here.
Gutenprint 5.2.2 is released!
New as of November 16,2008! The Gutenprint project is pleased toannounce Gutenprint 5.2.2, a stable bugfix release of 5.2. Thisrelease offers a few bug fixes for 5.2.1. This package is availablein source form, and in binary installer form for Macintosh OS X (10.3and above). Youcan read the release notes and download it here.
Gutenprint 5.2.1 is released!
New as of October 21,2008! The Gutenprint project is pleased toannounce Gutenprint 5.2.1, the first stable release of Gutenprint 5.2.This release offers many fixes and improvements over the 5.0 and 5.1release series. This package is available in source form, and inbinary installer form for Macintosh OS X (10.3 and above). Notethat this release is no longer compatible with OS X 10.2!Youcan read the release notes and download it here.
Gutenprint 5.0.2 is released!
New as of January 3,2008! The Gutenprint project is pleased toannounce Gutenprint 5.0.2, a stable release in the Gutenprint 5.0series. This release features full support for CUPS 1.2, full supportfor borderless printing on Epson inkjet printers, support formore Epson, Canon, and dye sublimation printers, and more. This package is available in source form, and as a binary installer for Macintosh OS X (10.2 and above). Youcan read the release notes and download it here.
Gutenprint 5.0.1 is released!
New as of June 17,2007! The Gutenprint project is pleased toannounce Gutenprint 5.0.1, a stable release in the Gutenprint 5.0series. This release features full support for CUPS 1.2, full supportfor borderless printing on Epson inkjet printers, support for manymore Epson, Canon, and dye sublimation printers, and more. Thispackage is available in source form, and as a binary installer forMacintosh OS X (10.2 and above). Youcan read the release notes and download it here.
Gutenprint 5.0.0 is released!
New as of July 30,2006! The Gutenprint project is pleased toannounce the first public release of Gutenprint 5.0. This release,which has been under development for over four years, offers improvedquality, greatly enhanced functionality, and support for many moreprinters than our previous version, Gimp-Print 4.2.
Currently only the source package is available. We expect to release abinary installer for Macintosh OS X in the very near future. Youcan read the release notes and download it here.
Gimp-Print 4.2.7 is released!
New as of July 15,2004! Gimp-Print 4.2.7 is released. This offersa number of bug fixes over 4.2.6. Youcan read the release notes and download it here.
Gutenprint is supplied in source code form under the GPL (GNUGeneral Public License). Please be sure to read the README and NEWSfiles in the distribution.
- The Gutenprint Project Team
Please visit ourproject page, which contains a lot more information about us!
What is Gutenprint?
Gutenprint, formerly named Gimp-Print, is a suite of printerdrivers that may be used with CUPS, the Common UNIX Printing System.CUPS is the printing system used by all modern Linux and UNIX systems.These drivers provide high quality printing for UNIX (includingMacintosh OS X 10.2 and later) and Linux systems that in many casesequal or exceed proprietary vendor-supplied drivers in quality andfunctionality, and can be used for demanding printing tasks requiringflexibility and high quality. This software package include anenhanced Print plugin for the GIMP that replaces the plugin packagedwith the GIMP in addition to the CUPS driver.
Gutenprint has been renamed in order to clearly distinguish itfrom the GIMP. While this package started out as the original Printplugin for the GIMP, it has expanded into a collection of generalpurpose printer drivers, and the new, enhanced Print plugin for theGIMP is now only a small part of the package. Furthermore, the nameGutenprint recognizes Johannes Gutenberg, the inventor of the movabletype printing press. Finally, the word guten is the Germanword for good.
Gutenprint 5.2 incorporates extensive feedback from the beta andrelease candidate programs.
Gutenprint supports only the printer portion of multi-functiondevices (devices that typically include scanning, copying, and faxcapabilities).
Gutenprint currently supports over 700 printer models.
History of Gutenprint
The early years: Gimp-Print 3.x and 4.0
The predecessor to this software package (the original Printplugin for the GIMP) was first written by Michael Sweet of EasySoftware Products and initially worked only as a print plugin to theGIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program). In the summer of 1999, Ipurchased an Epson Stylus Photo EX printer to feed my photographyhobby. Finding no existing printer drivers, I adapted Mike's GIMPPrint plugin to this six-color printer, and by the end of the yearreleased version 3.0 of the Gimp-Print software, which was includedin version 1.1 of the GIMP. The intention was for this to be thestable plugin in version 1.2 of the GIMP while development of theGIMP Print plugin continued for later release.
I put the Gimp-Print development tree on SourceForge starting withversion 3.1, and quickly found a group of like-minded people whowanted to print high quality output on inexpensive inkjet printers.One of the main goals, which was not expected to be met until late inthe version 3.1 cycle, was to write a Ghostscript driver so thatprinting would not be restricted to the GIMP. Much to my surprise,someone wrote one within days! That gave me my first clue that theproject was destined for greater things.
In July 2000, barely a year after I bought my Epson Stylus PhotoEX, I was invited to the Linux Printing Summit hosted by VA LinuxSystems. In preparation for that, I spent long hours printing outtest images. I went back to the Gimp-Print version 3.0.9 release,which seemed like such an advance at the time, and was floored at howfar the project had come in four months! Output that had beenconsidered impressive with using six colors was put to shame by fourcolor output. That should give you an idea what modern printingtechnology can do. It also illustrates what a group of committedpeople can do.
I came away from the Printing Summit with a lot of new ideas.Other people were busy adding new features and support for moreprinters, and in November 2000, we released Gimp-Print version 4.0,the culmination of 9 months of work by the team. The quality wasalready tremendously improved over what the software could do at thePrinting Summit.
I knew at the time that Gimp-Print 4.0 had some seriouslimitations that would restrict what could be done. In particular,its color model was very restricted (it could only handle RGB andCMYK printers, possibly with light magenta and light yellow inks) andthe code was still closely tied in with the Print plugin for theGIMP. I wanted to devise a new architecture for the next release thatwould allow us to take advantage of more printer capabilities andsupport improved color generation and dithering, but progress wasslow. It took us a few months to fully stabilize Gimp-Print 4.0, andit became clear that our more ambitious goals weren't going to beachieved quickly. We decided to do an interim stable release based onimprovements to the 4.0 codebase that would give us some breathingspace while we worked on a new architecture.
Gimp-Print 4.2
The interim stable release was to become Gimp-Print 4.2. We usedthe numbering scheme adopted by the Linux kernel team, whereby stablereleases were denoted by even numbers in the minor release (the “2”in 4.2) while odd numbers denoted unstable development releases. Wewere fortunate that Roger Leigh joined the project shortly after theGimp-Print 4.0 release. Roger is a superb architect, and he quicklywhipped the somewhat disorganized code base into shape. We spent mostof 2001 cleaning up the code base, adding support for CUPS (by now,Mike Sweet had joined the project) and the nascent Foomatic metadatamanagement project, improving the color generation and ditheringcode, and adding support for more printers. A lot of our work wentinto automatically generating the CUPS PPD files and Foomatic data;the project already supported about 200 printers with a large numberof options, and writing all of this by hand would be tedious,error-prone, and unmaintainable. We spent most of the fall working ondocumentation, cleaning up bugs, and the like, and releasedGimp-Print 4.2.0 in late November.
Anticipating that the next major release of Gimp-Print would be amore extensive project, we decided to branch the 4.2 release, andwork on the next release (which would be either 4.4 or 5.0, dependingupon how extensive the changes would be) while also releasing updatesto 4.2. This would allow us to fix bugs and add new printers andperhaps minor new capabilities for users wanting a stable Gimp-Printrelease while making much more radical changes in preparation for thenext release. We started work on Gimp-Print 4.3 (the developmentseries that would eventually mature into the next stable releaseseries) around the beginning of 2002.
The Gimp-Print 4.2 release proved to be far more successful thanwe ever imagined. First of all, it was wonderfully stable from theoutset; it was to be over 4 months before we needed to release anupdate. We added one major new feature shortly after release, supportfor the new Ghostscript driver architecture based on HP's HPIJSdriver. This driver architecture allowed drivers to be compiledindependently of Ghostscript (previously drivers had to be compiledinto Ghostscript, a somewhat daunting project for end users). Wecontinued to add more printers, dither algorithms, and so forth, allwithout breaking compatibility with the initial 4.2.0 release.
2002 was a very exciting year for Gimp-Print. Apple had releasedOS X for the Macintosh and was planning to rely on a lot of free/opensource software for key functions of the OS. In particular from ourstandpoint, many vendors had not updated printer drivers for OS X,and many did not want to update their drivers for older printers.Since OS X had settled on CUPS as the core of its printing systemfrom 10.2 on, and Gimp-Print had full support for CUPS, the fit wasvery obvious and Gimp-Print wound up becoming part of the OS Xprinting system. We were very busy that year preparing for release ofGimp-Print for OS X. This was done in 4.2.2, which we released almost9 months after the initial 4.2.0 release (which says something aboutthe stability of Gimp-Print 4.2). This release created a lot ofexcitement in the OS X world and for us, and we did three morereleases in quick succession culminating with Gimp-Print 4.2.5 inearly 2003.
I was expecting that there would be one more release of Gimp-Print4.2 that would primarily contain bug fixes and incremental supportfor new printers. By 2003, many of the printers being released hadcapabilities beyond what Gimp-Print 4.2 could support. I alsoexpected that we would be ready to release Gimp-Print 4.4 or 5.0within a year, so there wouldn't be a need for anything more. Wereleased Gimp-Print 4.2.6 in early 2004. However, there were stillsome problems with that release, and we did one more release (4.2.7)in July 2004. This wound up being the final Gimp-Print 4.2 release.
Gimp-Print Becomes Gutenprint
In the meantime, work on Gimp-Print 4.3 was progressing, albeitrather slowly. We wanted to support the newest generation printerswith tiny droplets, very high resolutions, and extra colors, inaddition to adding color management and the possibility of supportingmany more printer capabilities beyond the fixed set offered inGimp-Print 4.2. In part due to all of the maintenance work on 4.2,and in part due to the natural tendency of people to move on to otherprojects, we made only slow progress on Gimp-Print 4.3. It was clearthat we weren't going to release a next generation of Gimp-Print in2002 or early 2003 as we hoped. However, the success of Gimp-Print4.2 took some of the pressure off, because 4.2 was proving to behighly maintainable. We wanted the next generation of Gimp-Print tobe more than just another incremental advance.
The core of the new parameter-based API, and hence of Gimp-Print4.3, was in place by early 2003. By this time, 4.2 was slowing down,and work on our development tree was starting to pick up. We decidedthat the architectural and user experience changes were sufficient toname the next release 5.0, and I put together a plan for going toalpha in July and releasing 5.0 in November 2003. That was not to be.
We were doing new releases of 4.3 for intrepid adventurers everyfew weeks, with extensive changes continuing, and it was only inDecember that we finally felt ready to move to 5.0 alpha, which wereleased in January 2004. Progress was slow; there were still quite afew API changes we felt we needed to make, and there were stillserious quality problems with many printers. In addition, newprinters were being shipped with additional inks that we couldn'thandle very well. We also had to adapt to other changes, such as GIMP2.0 based on GTK+ 2.0, which was not backward compatible withGTK+/GIMP 1.2. We released Gimp-Print 5.0 beta in June with manyimprovements, but there were still quite a few things on our releasechecklist that weren't done.
Based on the popularity of Gimp-Print 4.2, we decided that it wasvery important that Gimp-Print 5.0 not interfere with the use ofGimp-Print 4.2. It was clear that the changes in 5.0 were tooextensive to maintain compatibility in any useful way with 4.2, and alot of people had incorporated 4.2 into their daily work, so wethought long and hard about how to make the CUPS and Foomaticinterfaces not interfere with Gimp-Print 4.2.
It also became apparent that our ties to the GIMP had all butvanished by this point. We had actually squeezed all of theGIMP-related code out into a very small stub that was actuallysmaller than the original GIMP plugin! Furthermore, the Gimp-Printname was causing a lot of confusion among users; OS X users inparrticular were referring to Gimp-Print as 'Gimp'. We settled onthe name Gutenprint, and renamed the project in the fall of 2004.
We were still in beta; progress was slow at this point, but weweren't satisfied with the results. We finally did our first releasecandidate in September 2005, over a year after we entered beta. Wecontinued to move toward 5.0 release, but there was still a lot ofcleanup work that needed to be done: printers needed to be retuned,PPD files needed to be validated, we needed to incorporate feedbackfrom users that we only really started to get from the releasecandidates. There were a number of serious but subtle bugs with theCUPS and Foomatic interfaces that needed to be fixed in order to havea useful 5.0 public release.
In April 2006 I attended my second printing summit, this onehosted by Lanier, and spent three days working with many key playersin the Linux/UNIX printing world. This was very productive; I got alot of useful feedback on various issues and was able to raise issuesimportant to Gutenprint. We released the third release candidate inMay 2006, with a tremendous number of bug fixes and improvements, andthis finally felt like a real release candidate. We receivedextensive feedback from this release, and fixed other problems andmade some other changes to improve quality.
In Gutenprint 5.2, we accomplished many of our outstanding goalsleft over from Gutenprint 5.0, but not all. We've rewritten thePostscript output driver, converted the data in the Epson driver to bedata-driven, and much more. Unfortunately, Gutenprint 5.2 still doesnot offer true color management, but many of the hooks required arethere.