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Change the Icon of a Desktop Printer
If you use Apple's Desktop Printing Software, you may wish to change the printer icons to some that are a little more attractive. Often the icons are stored in the printer driver, which resides in the Extensions folder. Sometimes the icons are in the Finder, so if you open the print driver and don't see the icons, give the Finder a look.
There are three states to a Desktop Printer icon: Inactive, Active, and Disabled. These are each saved as separate resource ID's, as you'll see below.
The first thing you need to do is get a replacement icon! I suggest heading to MacPlaza and viewing the Icons page. It was there that I downloaded "Idea's Printer Icons".
Since my printer is a StyleWriter, I'm going to replace Apple's dull icon with Idea's 1200 icon.
 To copy the icon to the clipboard, Get Info on the icon folder. You should see a window similar to the one on the left.
Click once on the icon displayed in the window and copy it to the clipboard. You can then close the window.
 Open a copy of the print driver in ResEdit and scroll down to the icl8 resources.
Open them with a double-click.
 Look for the three icons similar to the ones at left: Normal, Bold, and Disabled.
If you don't see them, your Desktop Printer Icons maybe stored in the Finder. Open a copy of the Finder and look in the icl8 resources.
 Once you have found the three icons, you can begin pasting the replacement into ResEdit's icon editor.
Open the Normal icon with a double-click. Paste in your replacement from the Clipboard. On the right side of the editor, drag the new icon into the ICN#, icl4, and Mask positions.
Repeat for the bold and disabled icons.
 After pasting the replacement icon into the Bold and Disabled resources, use the editor to modify them as shown on the left. The Active icon has the slightly darker border. The Disabled icon has the X through it. Even if you don't replace your desktop icon, you can make the Bold and Disabled a little less dark, a little more subtle!
After you have modified all three icon resources, save your work and quit ResEdit. Replace the Printer Driver (or Finder) and restart the computer. Your new printer icon should be on the desktop! |
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