Any Mac OSX Guru's out there... Please help. (1 Viewer)

[Eric M Jones]

After being a mac user for 10+ years I finally upgraded to a new machine and OSX. (Previously used klondike G3 with OS9)

My new Mac:
1.8 iMac G5, OSX 10.3.9, 1G RAM

I've only had this machine for 2 days and I'm still learning about the OS which is quite foreign compared to OS9. The problem I'm having is with my printer. After I installed the printer software I did a quick test with iphoto and it printed fine... So I assumed that it would work with oter apps too. This morning I attempted to print a .pdf with Preview. When I sent it to print the rainbow wheel spun for a while and then the Preview shut down and I was left with a dialouge box that stated "The app. unexpectedly quit." (No Kidding...) I assumed it may be an issue with Preview so I downloaded the Acrobat 7 reader. Long story short; same problem, same dialouge box. I tried Mail for kicks and it's doing the same thing. Went back to iPhoto and it printed fine.

I ran the OSX system disc checker and it said that the system was fine.

Any troubleshooting ideas?

-EJ

 

[Pamela]

Hmmm, not familiar with that problem. When glitches like that pop up, the first thing I do is repair permissions. You can boot up on the OS X disk and you will find it in the disk utility.

You can also download cocktail, which has a repair permissions function in it. I highly recommend this utility if you are running OS X. I run my scripts regularly, as well as repair permissions every once in a while.

Other than that, I'll have to think on it. . .

I switched to OS X not long after it came out and never looked back. Congrats on the new computer, and good luck!

 

[Thomas Newton]

I had a problem like that after upgrading from Mac OS X 10.3 "Panther" to Mac OS X 10.4 "Tiger".

The only thing that cleared it was going into the printing utility, and resetting the entire printing system. (This step deleted all print queues and print jobs.) Following that, I re-added my USB printer ... so far, things are looking good.

 

[Kyle McKnight]

Might want to try the computer section. Might be some threads to browse there.

 

[Ken Chan]

Not sure exactly how printing works on OS X, but it might be a printer driver problem, with rendering text. What printer is it? Check the printer manufacturer's website for an updated driver.

 

[Charles Guajardo]

can you print other files using Preview or Adobe Reader? Sometimes an element in the PDF can become corrupt, either a font or image, that will cause it not to print. If you can print other files fine, I would suspect there is a problem with the file you are trying to print.

If you cannot print other files either, I would delete and redo your printer setup.

 

[Kris McLaughlin]

Repairing permissions was a good tip, you don't even have to boot off the disc to do it. It's already in your "Applications --> Utilities" folder.

What make of printer is it? Using the latest driver from the manufacturer's website is a good idea, too.

Good luck!

 

[SteveLa]

When trying to print with Adobe Reader, have you tried printing the file as an image? It's slower, but it works pretty good on files with font issues or PostScript problems. From the Print screen, click the Advanced button and check the box that says "Print as Image" Other things I'd definitely try is making sure you repair the disk permissions and make sure you have the most up to date print driver. If the driver was out of date, the printer may be set up with a generic printer description, which could also cause problems.