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| Crack Your Printer Predicaments |
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Peripherals June 2002 • Vol.8 Issue 6 Page(s) 86-88 in print issue |
Crack Your Printer Predicaments Tips & Tools Pros Recommend To Resolve Printing Problems | ||
 You've surmounted yet another traumatic project deadline using your iron-wrought nerves and quick wits. Now, all that's left to do is add a few more numbers (check), save the file (check), and print (ch . . .). Whoa, wait a second. Why's the printer light blinking like it's about to explode? Where's my document? What the heck is this "Cannot Communicate With Printer" error message? Panic ensues. And the project winds up late, all because of one silly printer configuration problem. To help you train for future printer catastrophe, we interrogated some of the finest technical support representatives on the planet about common printer errors. These reps hail from Tech24 (http://www.tech24.com) and SupportFreaks (http://www.supportfreaks.com), two Web sites that provide live technical support around the clock. These reps helped us construct a list of printer problems that relate to erroneous system settings and configurations. As you'll soon see, we left out the silly "paper jammed"-type error messages that you already know how to fix. What we did include are the kind of printer troubles that even pros have difficulty diagnosing. For every problem, we've developed a list of troubleshooting steps that will take you from simple to more complex solutions. To get you started, however, we want to review a few fundamentals useful for resolving many printer problems.
 Troubleshooting Basics. Understanding a few basic processes may help you solve numerous printer issues on your own. First, know how to check your printer's properties. In Windows 95/98 and Windows Me, click Start, point to Settings, and click Printers. In the Printers window, right-click the name of your printer and click Properties. In Windows XP, click Start and then click Control Panel. Click Printers And Other Hardware and Printers And Faxes. In the Printers And Faxes window, from the File menu, click Server Properties, then click the Drivers tab. This shows the settings in your printer's driver. Compare the settings in this dialog box with the ideal settings in your printer's manual. If you see a discrepancy in these settings, the printer may simply need a new driver. Driver's seat. Ridding a system of a corrupted or outdated driver and replacing it with a new one, which you can download from the printer manufacturer's Web site, is fairly easy. First, delete the old driver. In the Printers window, right-click the problematic printer's icon, then click Delete. Now you can work toward installing a fresh driver. For WinXP users, in the Printers And Faxes window, from the File menu, click Server Properties, then click the Drivers tab. Click the driver you want to delete, then click Remove. Most manufacturer sites have areas designed to make driver downloads as painless as possible. When you find your driver on its manufacturer's site, simply click the driver's file name and Windows presents you with a Save As dialog box; use this dialog box to save the file in a suitable folder.
More help. Installing a new driver won't solve every printer woe, of course, so understanding Windows' built-in Help system will give you an even sharper troubleshooting edge. Win9x, Me, and XP all provide troubleshooting tools for printers. In Win95, click Start and click Help. On the Contents tab, double-click the Troubleshooting topic and double-click If You Have Trouble Printing. Win95 users should also note that the Windows 95 Upgrade CD-ROM includes an enhanced printer troubleshooter tool that's more detailed than the built-in troubleshooter. You load this tool by browsing on the disc to OTHER\MISC\EPTS and then double-clicking Epts.exe.
There are occasionally situations where fundamental procedures, such as the ones we've suggested, do not immediately help resolve printer issues. Still, this information comes in handy when it's time for you to tackle more daunting problems, including some of the most common printer issues we discuss here. Problem: "Not Enough Disk Space" error message. Possible Cause: Your computer needs free disk space to complete a print job. The amount of disk space required depends on the size of the file you're printing. Solution: Check your free disk space. Double-click the My Computer icon, click your hard drive icon and, from the File menu, click Properties. If you have less than 50MB of free disk space, you'll want to free some up. Delete unnecessary files and programs and be sure to empty the Recycle Bin when you're finished. You may also want to defragment your hard drive and run ScanDisk to optimize your drive. Problem: The printer feeds blank pages or prints strange characters, or a "cannot communicate with printer" error message appears. Possible Cause: Problems such as these are often caused by faulty communication between the printer and the computer. There are a number of different reasons that your printer spews garbage, or nothing at all, but the following troubleshooting steps may help. Solution: Turn off the printer, unplug it from the electrical outlet, plug it back in, and then turn it on again. Turn off the computer for about five minutes, then restart it. Reload your printer drivers. Close all programs except the program from which you're attempting to print. Close the program you're trying to print from and then attempt to print from another application. Try to print a test page from the printer itself. This ensures that the problem is definitely software-related and not a printer hardware problem. If you've connected the printer through a scanner or other peripheral, reconnect the printer directly to your PC. Replace the printer cable with a cable you're sure is functional. If all else fails, try the printer with a different PC to make sure it works. If that doesn't help, try a different printer with your PC to ensure that your computer isn't the problem. Problem: The computer displays a "spool32" error. Possible Cause: The Spool32.exe program is a Win9x component that manages the spooling of print jobs. Spooling lets the PC's processor quickly process print jobs by temporarily storing jobs on the hard drive before sending them to the printer, a technique that lets you get back to work while the print job executes in the background. Spool32 errors often occur when the print jobs are incorrectly spooled. Fax and answering machine programs are notorious for causing spool32 errors. Other causes include outdated printer drivers and TSR (terminate-and-stay-resident) programs that run in the background and sometimes interfere with the Spool32.exe file during PC startup. Solution: Update your printer's driver. If that does not help, you can change the way the Windows print spooler handles print jobs. In your printer's driver, click the Details tab and click Spool Settings. Click the Spool Data Format drop-down menu and change the setting from EMF (enhanced metafile) to RAW. This forces your PC to translate print job data into printer format, which may slow your computer. On the flip side, EMF format may speed up your PC but it may make your printer a little sluggish. Problem: Illegal Operation and GPF (General Protection Fault) error messages generated. Possible Cause: These errors occur when Windows programs write to a portion of memory already in use by another application. This happens most often when you have many programs running simultaneously, or when you have dozens of program icons on the Desktop; both drain memory drastically. The more memory you use, the more likely the computer is to cause this kind of error. Solution: Shut down the computer and leave it off for at least five seconds to clear its memory of all programs the computer is running. If the error recurs, press CTRL-ALT-DELETE. In the Close Program dialog box, select any program except Explorer, Systray, Rnaap, and your Internet browser program, and then click End Task. Try printing again. Repeat this process if necessary until you've closed every program but the listed exceptions. Turn off bi-directional communication between the computer and printer. This lets you print but disables a few advanced, and often unnecessary, printer features. Change the printer spooler settings to Print Directly To Printer. For this particular print job or application, use a Microsoft Universal Print driver. Edit Windows settings. In Win95, load the Win.ini file in a text editor, such as Notepad, and put a semicolon (;) in front of the lines containing run= and load=. The semicolons basically tell the computer to ignore these lines. After the print job is done, remove the semicolons. In Win98 and WinMe, from the Start menu, click Run. Type msconfig and click OK. Click Selective Startup and clear the Load Startup Group Items checkbox. These steps should let you overcome illegal operation errors and complete a print job. Problem: Printer control panel locks up after you print a document using Windows. The buttons do not respond until you disconnect the data cable from the printer. Possible Cause: A few computers send initialize/reset signals during the startup process. If electronic noise interrupts the reset process the control panel may lock. Solution: Restart the computer into Windows, turn the printer's power on, and try printing. Ensure you're using a fully shielded, undamaged cable, preferably less than 6 feet long. Try a cable that you're sure is working. Problem: This error message appears: "Could Not Connect To The Printer: The Remote Procedure Call Failed And Did Not Execute." Possible Cause: This error occurs when the Windows Registry does not correctly update default printer information after multiple printers are removed or installed. Solution: When this error message appears, click OK to clear the message, then log off the system and log back on. Symptom: "Cannot Access Dynamic Link Library Novellnp.dll" error message appears when running the printer's setup software. Possible Cause: This error occasionally appears when setting up a Windows-driven printer on a Novell network. You may be able to click past this error message. However, after you complete the setup and attempt to access the printer's Properties dialog box, a blue screen may appear and the computer may stop responding.
Problem: When you print an OLE (object linking and embedding) object, such as an imported graphic, in Microsoft Office programs, such as Excel or Word, patterned fill may not appear on the printed page. Possible Cause: Your computer produces patterned fills in proportion to printer resolution. High-resolution printers may mistakenly reproduce these patterns so tightly that it appears to be a solid color. Resolution: There are two workaround solutions for this problem. Use one of these methods when you need to print in a pinch. Remove the object from its group, if possible. In your document, right-click the OLE object, select Grouping, and click Ungroup. You'll see a warning message that the object is about to be converted to a Microsoft Office Drawing and that embedded or linked information will be lost in the conversion. If you don't want to permanently convert the object, save another copy of this file elsewhere before completing the next step. To save another copy, from the File menu, click Save As, then select a folder in which to save the document. Click Yes to complete the conversion, then attempt to print again. You can also paste the object into your document as a bit map file. Once you're done creating and formatting the object, click to select it. From the Edit menu, click Copy. Minimize the Office program you're using. Click Start, point to Programs, point to Accessories, and select the Paint program. In the Paint window, from the Image menu, click Attributes. Set both height and width to 1. Click OK. From the Edit menu, click Paste. If you see a message about the image on the clipboard being larger than the bit map, click Yes. From the Edit menu, click Copy. Minimize the Paint program. In the Office program, from the Edit menu, click Paste. This provides the program with a bit map image that your printer can print correctly. Problem: You see the following error message when you try to connect to a Windows-based print server: "The server on which the device name printer resides does not have the correct printer driver installed. If you want to install the driver on your local computer, click OK." Possible Cause: This error message is sometimes attributable to an incompatible or improperly configured Point And Print setup. Resolution: Point And Print is a Windows feature that simplifies client/server printing schemes. However, sometimes a computer will have a third-party driver that's incompatible with WinXP. Such problems are often best resolved with the system administrator's help; however, using the following workaround may help you print when your IT guy is on the lam. This workaround lets you install a suitable driver on the client computer and helps you redirect this computer to the correct IPP (Internet printing protocol) URL (uniform resource locator). Click Start, click Control Panel, and double-click the Printers And Faxes icon. Double-click the Add A Printer icon. When the Add Printer Wizard appears, click Next. Click Local Printer Attached To This Computer, then click Next. Click Create A New Port. In the Type box, click Standard Port Monitor, then click Next. Type the IP (Internet Protocol) address of the IPP print server. If you aren't sure what the IP address is, consult a system administrator for the correct entry. Follow the on-screen instructions provided by the Add Printer Wizard, which will assist you in installing the correct driver. You're A Printer Pro. You may not be able to man a technical support line with the information we've provided in this article, but these tips should help you disentangle many frustrating printer issues. Keep this information around for later reference and maybe next time you'll beat your project deadline.  by Nathan Chandler |
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