Office Documents Will Not Print

[ToniBook]

Version: 2008
Operating System: Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard)

I have Office Mac 2008 Home & Student. My printer is a HP Officejet J4680

I can use my printer on everything else, except for office documents.

I can't print out Word or Excel.

I keep getting "Can not communicate with Printer"

What is going on? Everything else communicates with it just fine.

I brought Office when I went to Mac so I can continue using what I like. So I'm getting very frustrated with this and would like to figure this out.

 

[CyberTaz]

Hi Toni;

Have you applied the 10.6.1 update?

Is Office fully updated (12.2.1)?

Have you checked the HP site for an even more recent update to your printer
driver? Have you tried reinstalling your printer?

Have you repaired permissions & done a cold restart of the Mac?

I'm not clear on what you mean by "brought Office" but there seems to be a
common thread I'm seeing when users simply pull Snow Leopard out of the box
& throw it on an existing installation of a previous OS. There are numerous
tiny bits which the upgrade process doesn't seem to handle gracefully, and
if anything was the slightest bit askew under the old OS version the update
may exacerbate those issues as well as create others.

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

 

[mdh]

I get this problem on one of our work printers that is set up using
CUPS drivers.
All of the other applications that I've tried seem to work okay
(Illustrator, Photoshop, BBEdit, etc.)
Interestingly, it doesn't seem to be any better if I save to PDF and
then try to print from Preview (but I can print that PDF from a
windows computer)

Where do you see the error? I don't get any error; it just never
prints.

Matt

 

[ToniBook]

I bought my macbook pro with the Mac 10.6 Didn't do anything until that was installed.

3 days later I got the MS Office for Mac Home/Student and that updated as soon as I installed it to the 12.2.1 I'm hoping that takes care of any previous updates, because they will not install.

The printer I had wasn't working well with my new mac. So I bought HP Officejet J4680, updated with the newest drivers.....which got my scanner to finally to work.

My printer works with everything else on my mac......web pages, pdf...my quickbooks just not my MS Office.

The only thing that was working is if I saved an item as a PDF, then it will print. But that does not solve my issue of printing labels and everything else.

As soon as I hit the print button, I immediately get "Can not communicate with Printer"

Edit to add:

This is my 1st mac, I did not where I'm suppose to this "Have you repaired permissions & done a cold restart of the Mac?" So I looked it up and tried that.

It looks like that it is what was needed. It now works! Thankfully.

Thanks!

 

[Rob Schneider]

What protocol and "wire" are you using to connect to the printer?
Wireless? Ethernet? USB? Appletalk? The symptom "cannot communicate
withe the printer" is a symptom of a communication problem; hence I ask
how the computer and printer communciate with each other. There could
be a hardware fault with your computer?

I don't think Office applications do anything "special" to print. They
simply tell the operating system (OS/X) to "print" and printing handled
by the operating system and the vendor's drivers.

Could the root cause of the old printer not working be involved with the
new printer? What made you think a new printer would work better? What
problem did you expect to be solved? Have you done the things at
http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/product?product=3692888&lc=en&cc=us&dlc=en&lang=en&cc=us
yet? What was the result? Have you called HP for support? What did
they say?

--rms

www.rmschneider.com

 

[CyberTaz]

Glad to help!

Repairing disk permissions is one of those things that can be argued pro &
con as to its effectiveness, but I've found it to be quite effective. Any
software installations, updates & removals generally fare better if followed
by running that utility. Those actions cause changes & it helps confirm that
those changes are recognized properly... And it can't do any damage

Thanks for the confirmation.

Being new to the Mac you also may be interested in these pages:

http://www.apple.com/support/switch101/

http://word.mvps.org/mac/Differences.html

http://www.entourage.mvps.org/new2mac/index.html

Good Luck |:>)
Bob Jones
[MVP] Office:Mac

 

[ToniBook]

What protocol and "wire" are you using to connect to the printer?
Wireless? Ethernet? USB? Appletalk? The symptom "cannot communicate
withe the printer" is a symptom of a communication problem; hence I ask
how the computer and printer communciate with each other. There could
be a hardware fault with your computer?

I don't think Office applications do anything "special" to print. They
simply tell the operating system (OS/X) to "print" and printing handled
by the operating system and the vendor's drivers.

Could the root cause of the old printer not working be involved with the
new printer? What made you think a new printer would work better? What
problem did you expect to be solved? Have you done the things at
<http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/product?product=3692888&lc=en&cc=us&dlc=en〈=en&cc=us>
yet? What was the result? Have you called HP for support? What did
they say?

--rms

www.rmschneider.com

The old printer, was just old. It printed but it took 20min to print 10 pages and that was while being hooked up by wire to my mac. And it was not set up that way, it was wireless through our router.

Word did print on our old printer...it was just so, so slow....no way that I could get work done.

Of course, 4 days after getting the new printer they finally updated the drivers for the old brother for the new mac os....doh...that is life...lol My sister now has a new printer...lol

The HP is wireless, it doesn't have the option of hooking up through a router, when setting up the installation it did have me wire into my mac. But it goes through our network without an issue.

Everything on the mac, other then office, could communicate with the printer. MS Office was the only issue with it.

But it looks as if the permission repairs is what fixed it. Everything else is the same.

 

[Rob Schneider]

Cool. Glad you are back in business.

--rms

www.rmschneider.com

 

[Steven]

Bob,

Let me add to this. If you choose File...Print, it prints fine. Still think
this isn't a Microsoft problem?

SM

 

[CyberTaz]

I'm not sure what you're "adding to" or what your point is. The OP's issue
is acknowledged as resolved & clearly so stated more than once in this
thread. So yes, I'm certain that it wasn't "a Microsoft problem".

If you're having some sort of problem it would help if you'd post a new
message giving all particulars relevant to your issue... Just because some
symptoms seem similar does not mean that the cause or cure is the same, but
it's a simple fact that applications programs do not print anything. Print
services are handled by the OS & printer drivers, and that's where the vast
majority of print errors originate... Especially communication errors.

Second on the probability list is problems with the document, itself, which
are typically caused by the way the document has been handled by those who
have handled it. Again, not attributable to the program ‹ or its developer.

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

 

[John McGhie]

Hi Steven:

Yep: Absolutely certain it's not a Microsoft problem

Microsoft does not make any printing bits for OS X.

As soon as you issue the "Print" command, you are looking at a Finder
window, and dealing directly with the Apple Print Subsystem.

If a "particular" document won't print, that can be a Microsoft Office
problem (although, in the vast majority of cases, the cause is what the user
did to the document). But if "no" documents will print, the issue is in the
Apple Print Subsystem somewhere, and it's an issue for you, Apple, and your
Printer Manufacturer.

Cheers

Bob,

Let me add to this. If you choose File...Print, it prints fine. Still think
this isn't a Microsoft problem?

SM

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