Cannot print from applications in latest Tiger

M

markhod

Registered
Hello,

Ever since I upgraded to Tiger I have had printing problems.

Oddly I can print using "lpr file.txt", but if I use the print command in any of word, powerpoint, thunderbird or firefox printing does not happen. Powerpoint says I need to add a printer to "print center", but powerpoint does not have a "print center" from what I can tell. Maybe it means "printer and fax" in system settings which does have a printer added (else the lpr command would not work). The other 3 do not give an error message, just nothing happens.

Has anyone else had this problem and have a solution?

If it matters I print via a printer hooked up to a server on a linux box, but I dont know the details since it is run by our system admin. I am using a G4 ibook.

Thanks,

Mark
 
Mark,

The Print Center is not a function in your PowerPoint, Thunderbird, or Firefox application. This was the original utility used to setup printers for MacOS X. In Tiger, it is called Printer Setup Utility. You can find it in your /Applications/Utilities/ folder. You must run Printer Setup Utility to establish communication between your computer and your printer.

If you have trouble with PSU, write back with your printer's model, your connection protocol, print driver version number, etc. There are a lot of people here who will help you.
 
MisterMe said:
Mark,

The Print Center is not a function in your PowerPoint, Thunderbird, or Firefox application. This was the original utility used to setup printers for MacOS X. In Tiger, it is called Printer Setup Utility. You can find it in your /Applications/Utilities/ folder. You must run Printer Setup Utility to establish communication between your computer and your printer.

If you have trouble with PSU, write back with your printer's model, your connection protocol, print driver version number, etc. There are a lot of people here who will help you.
Click to expand...

Hi, yes the printer is set up in the printer setup facility. If it works ok with the lpr command is the issue not that applications do not have the ability to print, since the computer must be able to talk to the printer if lpr works?

Anyway from what I see in PSU:

there is a queue name which is <name>@<blah>.<blah>.<blah>.uk and there is no driver number given. The printer make is Samsung ML-1610. I do not know how to find out the connection protocol.

The host name is given as blah>.<blah>.<blah>.uk .

Thanks,

Mark
 
You can connect via USB, Ethernet, FireWire, or remotely via Airport (802.11b/g). You can communicate via TCP/IP, USB, Bonjour, etc. LPR is the Unix line printer daemon, which is really just IP-printing. Macintosh applications generally don't get independent control of the printer. Certainly web browsers and email programs don't. They communicate through the Print Center.

Since you print through a Linux print server, the Linux machine probably accepts PostScript and RIPs it to the printer. You should try to use Apple's PostScript driver. Setup the printer using the generic PPD file.

If this does not work, talk your Linux sysadmin. He knows how the printer is setup and what is required to send jobs to it.
 
MisterMe said:
You can connect via USB, Ethernet, FireWire, or remotely via Airport (802.11b/g). You can communicate via TCP/IP, USB, Bonjour, etc. LPR is the Unix line printer daemon, which is really just IP-printing. Macintosh applications generally don't get independent control of the printer. Certainly web browsers and email programs don't. They communicate through the Print Center.

Since you print through a Linux print server, the Linux machine probably accepts PostScript and RIPs it to the printer. You should try to use Apple's PostScript driver. Setup the printer using the generic PPD file.

If this does not work, talk your Linux sysadmin. He knows how the printer is setup and what is required to send jobs to it.
Click to expand...

Yes, I talked to him and we established Word prints, but not powerpoint, thunderbird and firefox. His only suggestion is to reinstall os x (and I though I had left that sort of solution behind with windows :( ) and hope it then works again.

unless someone has a less drastic solution to re-enable printing from these applications?
 
Well talking to another colleague it seems in 10.3 we were able to use Appletalk to talk to printers and this worked very well. In 10.4 Appletalk has been removed and the alternatives simply dont work out of the box it seems.

Is it possible to readd appletalk by hand to 10.4? Appletalk seems to have worked best so using it would seem the best anwser.

Thanks,

Mark
 
An old saying in troubleshooting is "redo or reconsider whatever you last changed." Try re-Updating using the latest (download) Combination Updater.
Or, reinstall OS X using the Archive & Install option in the installer.

Appletalk does work for printing in 10.4 (that's about all it does now).
 
Where to find it?
Using "find"? Where is the .app located?
"Stack not running" - What does that mean? How to fix it?
Thanks, Greg
 
gregbarker said:
Where to find it?
...
Click to expand...
Launch System Preferences.
Click Network.
From the Show: popup menu, select Built-in Ethernet.
Select the AppleTalk tab.
Check Make AppleTalk Active.
 
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