Re: HP 4MP printer driver current?

RobertB <missinglink@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

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.

Incidentally, which version of Mac OS X is your older iMac G4 running,
and which version of MS Word on the Intel iMac?

If you are getting an error from the printer driver on the computer, it
could also be a problem with the application generating a bogus PDF
(somehow), which is failing to be interpreted correctly by the printer
driver.

Mac OS X uses PDF internally as the intermediate form of print output
from all applications. The printer driver then translates the PDF into
the appropriate output langauge for the printer (Postscript in this
case).

Have you tried any of the following:

- Use the Preview option in the print dialog rather than printing
directly. Does the document look OK in Preview?

- Print to PDF, copy the PDF to your iMac G4 and print it from there on
the same printer. Any problems?

- Do you have access to any other printers (e.g. friends), ideally a
similar printer and Mac OS X version on their computer? If so, try
printing the Word document on their computer, and/or copying the PDF
generated on your computer to theirs, and printing that.

It would be useful to know if any of these also show signs of problems.

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.

I had a similar issue with my HP LaserJet 6MP with particular documents
(several of a similar style from one application: a ledger report from
my accounting software) in an earlier version of Mac OS X 10.5. I could
print to PDF, copy that to a 10.4.11 machine and print it fine from
there on the same printer, and it also worked with other printers
(including similar vintage HP models: I have a friend with an HP
LaserJet 5M).

In my case, the printer spat out a page with a Postscript error message
and only part of the document printed normally.

My 6MP has genuine Adobe Postscript (level 2, I think) but when I filed
a bug report with Apple, their opinion was that it was just an old
version of Postscript which was no longer fully compatible with the
current drivers in Mac OS X and they weren't going to do anything to fix
it.

Oddly, the problem went away after a subsequent update to Mac OS X 10.5
or the HP printer drivers, and I haven't seen it again since then. This
might just be luck - it was only failing on selected documents of that
type.

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

If the computer is spitting up an "Unexpected EOF" error, it might be
generated on the computer and nothing to do with the printer. If that
message is being sent back from the printer, then it could be a
Postscript compatibility issue. A fault with the printer seems unlikely.

--
David Empson
dempson@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
.

Relevant Pages

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