OSX Printer Utility

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1

Just a quick OSX Leopard question…

I installed Leopard 10.5.4 recently on a separate hard drive on my G5. I was doing some work with PDFs (another woeful sotory of Microsoft - Adobe mismatch!!) and tried to do a Print to PDF using Acrobat 7 Professional. A warning message came up saying it wouldn’t work as Printer Utility was not installed. Sure enough, no printer utility in the Applications/Utilities folder.

This is present in my copy of Tiger 10.4. Is it not a part of 10.5? Or is it third part anyway?

I know that you can print PDF anyway from the OSX dialogue, but I like to have the Acrobat Professional facility anyway - you have more control and it’s simply more suitable for some jobs.

what is ‘Printer Utility’ and should it have been installed with Leopard?

Hugh

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2

If you have an Epson printer, the Printer Utility is installed
separately from the OS. You can get the right version for your printer
from the Epson web site by downloading the latest print driver
software. Similar case with HP- but called by a different name, I think.

HTH Colin.

On 19 Feb 2010, at 12:07, hugh wrote:

Just a quick OSX Leopard question…

I installed Leopard 10.5.4 recently on a separate hard drive on my
G5. I was doing some work with PDFs (another woeful sotory of
Microsoft - Adobe mismatch!!) and tried to do a Print to PDF using
Acrobat 7 Professional. A warning message came up saying it
wouldn’t work as Printer Utility was not installed. Sure enough, no
printer utility in the Applications/Utilities folder.

This is present in my copy of Tiger 10.4. Is it not a part of 10.5?
Or is it third part anyway?

I know that you can print PDF anyway from the OSX dialogue, but I
like to have the Acrobat Professional facility anyway - you have
more control and it’s simply more suitable for some jobs.

what is ‘Printer Utility’ and should it have been installed with
Leopard?

Hugh

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3

Forgot to say, it’s worth checking you have the latest printer driver
for Leopard, as this will differ from what you originally installed
for Tiger.

Colin

On 19 Feb 2010, at 12:23, Colin Alcock wrote:

If you have an Epson printer, the Printer Utility is installed
separately from the OS. You can get the right version for your
printer from the Epson web site by downloading the latest print
driver software. Similar case with HP- but called by a different
name, I think.

HTH Colin.

On 19 Feb 2010, at 12:07, hugh wrote:

Just a quick OSX Leopard question…

I installed Leopard 10.5.4 recently on a separate hard drive on my
G5. I was doing some work with PDFs (another woeful sotory of
Microsoft - Adobe mismatch!!) and tried to do a Print to PDF using
Acrobat 7 Professional. A warning message came up saying it
wouldn’t work as Printer Utility was not installed. Sure enough, no
printer utility in the Applications/Utilities folder.

This is present in my copy of Tiger 10.4. Is it not a part of 10.5?
Or is it third part anyway?

I know that you can print PDF anyway from the OSX dialogue, but I
like to have the Acrobat Professional facility anyway - you have
more control and it’s simply more suitable for some jobs.

what is ‘Printer Utility’ and should it have been installed with
Leopard?

Hugh

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4

How would I know where/what the Leopard printer driver is, anyway?

I have a simple Deskjet 930c, just plugged it in and it went! Never installed any HP software.

The thing is, I was about to install a PDF utility called CUPS-PDF for OSX and the instructions say ‘Open printer utility and add the virtual printer to your list of printers etc.’…but I have no printer utility. Seems strange that a third part PDF printer install would need to rely on an Epson or HP driver, doesn’t it?

Printers…all a complete mystery to me!

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On 19 Feb 2010, at 12:45, hugh wrote:

The thing is, I was about to install a PDF utility called CUPS-PDF for OSX and the instructions say ‘Open printer utility and add the virtual printer to your list of printers etc.’…but I have no printer utility. Seems strange that a third part PDF printer install would need to rely on an Epson or HP driver, doesn’t it?

Hugh, if you click System Preferences in the Dock, you’ll see ‘Print and Fax’ which will allow you to add real or virtual printers.

best wishes,

Paul Bradforth

Buy my eBooks at:
http://www.paulbradforth.com/books/

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6

I am no technical expert, but to put things simply, every printer has
its own way of getting your data down on paper, The printer driver is
produced by the printer manufacturer and by installing this, usually
from a CD or DVD that came with the printer, all the necessary code is
added to you OS.

When you change OS you may also need a new driver to correctly
interpret the data you send when you click Print so that it squirts
out the right amount and colour of ink in just the right place. That’s
because a new OS will have changed the way it works in sometimes
subtle but often significant ways.

I suggest you go to the HP web site and under Support look for the
printer driver associated with you printer, then download and install
it. It only takes a matter of minutes and it may solve your problem.

If not, (or if you printer seems OK for everything else) try
reinstalling Acrobat as this will look after the PDF end of things and
should install “Adobe PDF 7.0” (or similar). You can check in your
System Prefernces > Print & Fax to see if it’s already listed.

HTH Colin

On 19 Feb 2010, at 12:45, hugh wrote:

How would I know where/what the Leopard printer driver is, anyway?

I have a simple Deskjet 930c, just plugged it in and it went! Never
installed any HP software.

The thing is, I was about to install a PDF utility called CUPS-PDF
for OSX and the instructions say ‘Open printer utility and add the
virtual printer to your list of printers etc.’…but I have no
printer utility. Seems strange that a third part PDF printer install
would need to rely on an Epson or HP driver, doesn’t it?

Printers…all a complete mystery to me!

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7

Ah…‘print & fax’ in prefs…yes the Deskjet is there, but no sign of Adobe PDF 7.0…which is curious.

The deskjet works fine, no probs. It’s these virtual printers which are always the problem!

Thanks both of you to alerting me to print & fax…looks like a printer utility to me!

Hugh

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8

On 19 Feb 2010, 12:19 pm, hugh wrote:
… but no sign of Adobe PDF 7.0…which is curious.

That sounds like a really good reason to reinstall Acrobat 7. I ran into a problem recently where half of my Adobe apps suddenly refused to run. Part of the reason was having a dead version of Acrobat 7 pdf driver competing with version 8. Worked seemingly well for long time…but…

The end of the story basically meant A total reinstall of my Adobe suite of products to get things working properly again.

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