Tag Archives: printing

fixed : can’t connect old printer to new Mac using USB

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Question :

A friend gave me a rather old printer that was working great for him, and said that I could easily use it with my MacBook also, using a USB-cable. So I took a USB cable with an old (flat) USB-connector on the one side and an new (small) USB-connetor on the other side and plugged that into the printer and into my MacBook Air (or Pro) that only has those same new (small) USB-ports. The connection feels good, but when I try to print from my Mac, the printer is not recognised…

What is wrong ?


Answer :

From what you are describing, you are using the wrong port on the printer : you are using a ‘regular’ USB-A port, probably on the top, front or side of the printer… you should however use the ‘square’ USB-B printer port that is on the back of your printer.

See the difference between various USB connectors and ports in this image (an Adobe Stock image) :

The ports on your Mac are USB-C [ 2nd from the right ].
The port on the printer you were trying to use is USB-A [ 1st from the left ] (or USB 3.0 [ 3rd from the left ] which is the same in size and shape) – that usually is for plugging in a USB-stick to print documents directly from a USB-stick
The port on back of the printer – the one you should use – is USB-B [ 2nd from the left ].

If you don’t have a ‘printer cable’ (USB-A to USB-B) and a USB-C adapter piece (USB-C plug-on cap or cable for USB-A), you can buy them from any electronics store. Or you can buy a ‘modern printer cable’ (USB-B to USB-C).
Here are direct links to buy these from Amazon :

modern printer cable (USB-B to USB-C) from Amazon.com
modern printer cable (USB-B to USB-C) from Amazon.co.uk
modern printer cable (USB-B to USB-C) from Amazon.de

all-in-one modern & regular printer cable (USB-C/USB-A to USB-B) from Amazon.com
all-in-one modern & regular printer cable (USB-C/USB-A to USB-B) from Amazon.co.uk
all-in-one modern & regular printer cable (USB-C/USB-A to USB-B) from Amazon.de

to keep this website online MacManus.nl makes a tiny fee if you buy from these Amazon links

If you plug in the right cable from the back of your printer to your Mac, the printer will berecognised and you will be able to print.

That’s it !

enjoy πŸ˜‰

fixed : cannot print PDF form from macOS Preview.app

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Question :

I have received an eMail from a vendor that includes a dispatchnote PDF that I need to print.

The PDF opens fine in Preview.app, but when I try to print it, everything seems to work fine, only the print doesn’t come out of the printer…

I can’t find the problem : the PDF appears in the printer’s Job List, the status bar fills up completely, the printer makes some noise to indicate that it is receiving data, the print job is deleted from the Job List, and nothing comes out of the printer… there are no error messages, no indication what so ever that something went wrong… the pint just won’t come out of the printer…

I checked to see if there is something special about the PDF-file that might be causing this, but I can’t find anything special about it… the PDF is not locked or anything…

What can I do ?

 

Answer :

Even though it is not clear where this problem comes from, the solution is simple : use Adobe Reader (a.k.a. Adobe Acrobat Reader DC) or Adobe Acrobat Pro if you have it.

To do so, do this :

  • go to https://get.adobe.com/uk/reader/otherversions/
  • at Step 1, 2 and 3 set the right OS, language and version, then click the Download Now button to download Adobe Reader
  • when the download is done, install Adobe Reader on your Mac
  • then, open Adobe Reader
  • and open the hard-to-print PDF from Adobe Reader
  • as soon as it starts appearing on-screen, you can press [CMD] + [P] to get to the printing screen
  • from there, just try to print again…
    • note that this is not your regular macOS printing screen, so you might want to check if all settings are to your liking before you give the actual print-commando (you might have to set things like double sided printing again)

The fact that the file is not printing from Preview.app, but it is from Adobe Reader, might indicate that the PDF was created by Adobe Acrobat Pro on Windows and that there is a problem in the version of Acrobar Reader that was used that causes this problem to arise…

That’s it !

enjoy πŸ˜‰