Excel 2008: Can't print certain files to certain printers

[Miles_Stokes]

Version: 2008
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.5 (Leopard)

The company I work for is preparing to upgrade all of our Macs from Office 2004 to Office 2008. Our test users have had trouble printing many of their Excel files to our HP Laserjet 4000-series printers, though.

We've found two seemingly distinct issues when printing to the following models of printers (of which our business has quite a few):
-HP Laserjet 4000
-HP Laserjet 4050N

The printing issues are not present on this model:
-Konica Minolta CPP650

1. Any Excel documents with printing of gridlines enabled (in Page Setup -> Sheet) will not print. The print job will go through the local queue as normal, but the page will never come out of the printer.

2. Certain Excel documents that use scaling (in Page Setup -> Page) will not print, exhibiting the same symptoms as problem #1. Changing the scaling to a higher percentage (99-100%) seems to allow them to print.

The first issue seems consistently reproducible, even on a new document. The second only applies to certain documents we have, but I can send samples to any Microsoft BU people for whom they'd be useful.

Any help or advice would be appreciated -- thanks!

 

[CyberTaz]

Hello Miles -

Have you checked to see if there are updated drivers for the printer?
Especially important if you've updated to 10.5.2 - I'm under the impression
that Apple threw the industry a curve with that update to the extent that
even the device drivers that shipped with 10.5.0 ceased to function as they
had originally. HP support would be the best resource, although there seems
to be mixed feelings on that issue

In the meantime, try using different resolution settings for the printer...
Some similar problems seem to be resolved if the resolution is set to its
higher levels.

HTH |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

 

[Miles_Stokes]

Bob,

I'll give that a try - thanks for the quick reply!

-Miles

 

[Miles_Stokes]

Installing the latest HP drivers and printing at different resolutions did not resolve the problem. However, we did find a fix:

Previously, we were printing from 10.5 workstations to a 10.4 print server. When we tried printing directly from the workstations or using a 10.5 server as a print server, the problems disappeared. Updating the print drivers on the 10.4 server didn't help, so I suspect the issue may have something to do with OS 10.4's old version of CUPS.

 

[TheFreeLine]

This may or may not solve your issue, but I also have been having problems
with files printing from Powerpoint, Word, and Adobe PDF from Mac OS x14
Tiger. I narrowed the problem down to the graphics in the file. The printer
we were trying to print to was a Canon MFD High-resolution printer. I
originally thought this was an issue with Microsoft product integration with
Mac, but realized by testing documents with just text that they seemed to
print with relative ease. Here is my fix:

• Choose print
• In the opening dialog box, choose Quality Settings from the pull-down menu
• Select Image Compression
• Change from Printer Default to Speed Priority

Test show negligible effects on the graphics in the document but allows the
file to print much more rapidly. This took a 22-page document with graphics
on 75% of the pages from a print time of 2+ hours to less than 2 minutes.

I hope this helps anyone who has been gray-hair afflicted by this same issue.

Thanks!