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TICKET ARCHIVE -> Word will not print

monibu8 - Mar 16, 2008 - 6:58 pm

I have a Mac PowerPC G5 running on OSX 10.3.9. When I try to print a simple ordinary Word text document (Microsoft Word X for Mac), a print window pops up showing all the pages zipping to the printer (which is a Xante Accel-A-Writer 8200), and then the printer's dialog box shows up in the dock. It announces that the job is processing, and then is printing. The little screen and indicator lights on the printer go from "Ready/Idle" to "Processing." At that point, the job is OVER. And by that I mean that no printing ever occurs. The various indicators on the printer and Mac screen return to "Ready/Idle" status, just like they do when a print job is completed, but nothing that I create in Word ever prints. I have no problem printing from any other programs. I've think I've tried every possible variation in the settings offered in print and page setup windows, but nothing has ever worked. Any suggestions on solving this problem??? Thanks in advance.

DeltaMac - Mar 16, 2008 - 10:15 pm

Just for some more information - you seem to say that "nothing has ever worked", so you have _never_ printed from Word on this Mac to this printer? Is that correct? If you have in the past, what has changed?
Is there any other response from the printer - does a page eject, but still blank? Or, nothing at all happens....?
Can you print an Excel document, checking to see if other Office apps share this no-printing problem? Can you print a web page from Safari?

Have you tried printing to Word from another user account on your Mac?
Create a new one just for this purpose, and log out, then log back in as that user, and try a test print from Word....

Let me know what you find out....
- Dale

monibu8 - Mar 17, 2008 - 10:45 am

Correct: never ever have I been able to print a Word document on this computer to that printer. Nothing happens, no blank page, no garbled output. Nothing at all. I don't know how to use another account, as you suggest trying, but I did just try to print a one-page Excel document and the same thing happened: the printer showed "Processing" and then returned to "Ready/Idle" with no output. Ditto for Safari. Hope that helps.Thanks.

DeltaMac - Mar 17, 2008 - 3:24 pm

So, what software will let you print now?

Very easy to use another account.
Open your System Preferences/Accounts pane.
Click the plus (+) at the bottom of the account list to add a new account. Make it an admin account.
Give it a name and a password
Log out of your present account, and choose you new account to login.
Try to print from that user account...

Do you have up-to-date PPD files for your Xante printer? You can check for that at the Xante web site, looking for discontinued products at the support page.

monibu8 - Mar 17, 2008 - 3:39 pm

Probably 95% of what I print is InDesign, the remainder Quark. I have checked the Xante site within the past week. I downloaded the software and began to install and got a window telling me it was already installed, so I'm up-to-date there. I'll make a new account attempt when I get a moment. (I just tried printing a pdf from within Acrobat. Got the same result as with Word and Excel.)

DeltaMac - Mar 17, 2008 - 4:57 pm

I will guess that you are normally printing Postscript files from both Quark and ID.
I don't know about troubleshooting Postscript problems, (in this case, sending non-postscript docs to a postscript printer), so I'm going to re-open this. You may want to re-post your question on the main forums at this site. You will get attention from far more users/helpers.
Sorry i couldn't help you more...
- Dale

MACBOY29 - Mar 18, 2008 - 11:58 am

o.k can i get a clearer picture on this issue?

monibu8 - Mar 18, 2008 - 12:26 pm

Sure. Thanks for asking. Best bet is probably to go to the Forums, "Mac OS X System & Mac Software" and look for "Cannot print Word documents.: It was posted yesterday. This link might work to lead you to the thread:
http://macosx.com/forums/mac-os-x-sy...documents.html

MACBOY29 - Mar 18, 2008 - 12:55 pm

try an upgrad to office o4 and see what hppens office x is decomissioned now and 04 is now replaced by 08