Re: HP 4MP printer driver current?

In article <1iwq1q2.1w6rcqz1luna9nN%dempson@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
dempson@xxxxxxxxxxxxx (David Empson) wrote:

RobertB <missinglink@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Am running 10.4.11 (Intel iMac) and have an old, reliable HP 4MP
Laserjet. I've been having all sorts of problems with a MS Word doc that
refuses to print beyond a certain point (printer utility sometimes spits
out "Unexpected EOF"). I can print the document OK from Word X on my
older iMac (G4) though.

Anyone know if the currently included OS X driver for this printer is
the latest one and if not where the current printer driver would be on
HP's site.

The LaserJet 4MP is a Postscript printer, therefore it will be using the
standard Postscript drivers included with Mac OS X, together with a PPD
file (Postscript Printer Description) which defines characteristics of
that particular model. There is no separate "driver" as such.

OK. Thanks.

You might have run into a situation where the Postscript implementation
in your printer is not quite compatible with recent versions of Mac OS
X. The LaserJet 4 series was one where HP used an emulation of
Postscript rather than genuine Adobe Postscript, and you might have
struck a compatibility issue because of this.

Odd, that it would manifest itself with this one file though. However,
the file crashed Word during a spell check.


A possible workaround might be to use a PCL driver instead of a
Postscript one. (PCL is the native printer language for most HP
printers.) At least with Mac OS X 10.5, there is a CUPS (Gutenprint)
driver installed which supports the LaserJet 4P, which is the same as
your 4MP but without Postscript support. That driver will be using PCL
to talk to the printer. If it is present in 10.4.11, you could try it.

To use this driver, you might need to add the printer again and manually
select the printer driver rather than letting it auto select.

Hmmm.

You could also run into problems with this method depending on how you
are communicating with the printer. It is possible that the 4MP won't
support PCL via its LocalTalk port, only parallel, so if you are using
an Ethernet to LocalTalk bridge device, this method may not work, but an
Ethernet to Parallel print server (e.g. a JetDirect EX) should work.

Yeah, it's AppleTalk via an Asante bridge via Ethernet.



I looked at their site and they had two files, one a rather
large HP_LaserJet_and_Edgeline_print-only.dmg file, supposedly for this
printer and a ljlegacy-en.sit file, which is older than the computer.

Are either of these files relevant? I'm wondering if installing the
LaserJet dmg would do more harm than good. Hard to tell since I don't
know what's in it.

Hard to say without looking myself.

There were various updates of the "ljlegacy" drivers but I haven't kept
one handy so I don't know how recent they were. You would probably need
a "universal" one if it contains any code, but if it is just PPD files
then it should be safe to use on an Intel Mac. If it is that old, I
wouldn't bother or risk it.

Thanks. I think this document is jinxed. Either that or the printer is
just flaking out.

--
"Never believe anything until it's officially denied."
.

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