If you do not like the way the printer icon for your printer looks in the “Print & Fax” System Preference or in the Dock on your Desktop, you can edit it yourself.

1. First thing to do is upgrade the driver for your printer ; sometimes older drivers show a generic printer icon in OSX, and that might be updated in the new drivers also. Go to the support-part of your printer’s brand and download and install new printer drivers for your version of OSX
2. If have an alias to your printer on your Desktop or in your Dock (a.k.a. a “Desktop Printer”), you can change the icon just like you can change any icon in OSX ; by selecting the icon in the Finder, right-clicking “Get Info”, selecting the icon in Get Info, and then pasting the desired picture onto it (you could use a proper icon, but any picture can be used)
3. …or you can do the ‘DareDevil-method’ : [this example shows how to do it for the Samsung CLP-315 printer, but it is similar for any other printer]

• start by delete the printer from the printer list in “Print & Fax” System Preference (a.k.a. “Print & Scan” – depending on which OSX-version you have)
• then find this file :

/Library/Printers/PPDs/Contents/Resources/Samsung CLP-310 Series.gz

• Note : this file is located in the “Library”-folder that is directly on your hard disk, it is NOT in the “Library”-folder that is in the “System”-folder within the “Users”-folder !
• copy this file to the Desktop
• and rename the original file to Samsung CLP-310 Series (orig).gz so you will have a backup just in case…
• then go back to the Desktop and unzip the copied .gz-file by clicking on it
• open the unzipped file in the TextEdit application
• add this line into the code :

*APPrinterIconPath: “/Library/Printers/Samsung/Icons/CLP-310.icns”

• this is at the beginning of the code, immediately after the block of code that starts with :

*APDialogExtension: “/Library/Printers/Samsung/CLP-310/PDEs/.…

• and immediately preceding this line of code :

*Manufacturer: “Samsung”

• double-check to make sure that the desired icon is located at “/Library/Printers/Samsung/Icons/CLP-310.icns” in the Finder
• save the file (just use “Save” in TextEdit)
• convert the file back into a .gz-file with this name : Samsung CLP-310 Series.gz
• Note : you will need to use a dedicated application like the free “The Zipper” for this (you can download “The Zipper” from MacUpdate.com)
• assign a color to the file using your right mouse-click (CMD-click)
• drag the file back to the place where the original used to be
• go back to the “Print & Fax” System Preference, and add your printer to the list again
• do NOT use the pre-selected driver, but choose “Other” and select the .gz-file you’ve just made :/Library/Printers/PPDs/Contents/Resources/Samsung CLP-310 Series.gz