Printing Quick Assist

What do you need help with?

• Tell me how to set up my printer with my Mac
• Show me how to print my stuff
• I'm having trouble printing

Setting Up a Printer with Your Mac

1) Check for Automatic Printer Detection
After installing the printer driver (if needed) and connecting your printer to your Mac, your computer will usually automatically detect the printer as long as the printer is powered on. To verify, open the document you wish to print and choose Print from the application's File menu. Your printer name should appear next to “Printer” in the Print dialog. If not, choose your printer from the Printer pop-up menu, check the submenus if you're connecting to a shared network printer. If you can choose the printer, you're good to go and can ignore the next step. If your computer doesn't acknowledge your printer's existence, keep reading.

2) Add Your Printer to the Printer List
In the Print dialog, choose Add Printer from the Printer pop-up menu to open the Printer Browser. Select your printer from the list and then click Add to make it your default printer. If you don't see your printer in the list, click More Printers, choose your printer's type from the top pop-up menu in the resulting dialog (such as Bluetooth or EPSON USB), select the printer, and then click Add to make it your default. If you just connected your printer for the first time, you may need to wait a short while before your printer appears in this list.

Printing a Document

1) Set Up Your Document
Open the document, photo, or whatever it is that you want to print in the appropriate application. To change the file's page orientation (portrait or landscape), print to a different paper size, or scale the document's size, choose Page Setup from your application's File menu and then adjust the settings in the resulting dialog. Click OK when finished.

2) Print Your Page
From the File menu, choose Print (or press Command-P). In the resulting Print dialog, make sure that your printer is the chosen one in the Printer pop-up menu. Then click Print. If you can't find your printer in the Printer pop-up menu, see “Setting Up a Printer with Your Mac,” above, for help.

Printing Tips
You can adjust the quality of your print, dictate the number of copies to print, tell your printer what kind of paper you're using, and more by setting options in the Print dialog. This can greatly improve your results when printing photos. Before you click Print in the Print dialog, choose any desired options from the Copies & Pages pop-up menu and select what you want accordingly. When you've got everything, click Print. For more help with printing, choose Mac Help from the Help menu in the Finder and do a search for “print.”

Top 10 Troubleshooting Tips

1) Check Your Printer
Make sure that your printer is plugged in and turned on, that it has paper in its tray, and that it's displaying its normal status lights (if things are blinking, consult your printer manual for further instruction). Try turning your printer off and then on again to see if that helps.

2) Check Your Connections
Make sure that the printer is properly connected to your Mac or network. All cable connections should be secure—try disconnecting and reconnecting, swapping the cable for another, and trying a different USB or FireWire port to see if that helps. If you're printing to a shared printer, make sure that your Mac is accessing the network to which the printer is connected. To verify that your Mac sees your printer, open System Profiler (from the Apple menu, choose About This Mac, and click More Info) and then select either FireWire or USB, depending on your connection, under “Hardware.” You should see your printer listed in the right pane.

3) Make Sure That You've Installed the Printer Driver
Mac OS X comes with a slew of printer drivers for a wide variety of printers as part of the installation. However, your printer may require you to install the manufacturer's printer driver to take full advantage of the printer's unique features. Consult your printer's documentation to find out if you need to install the driver and do so if you haven't already (be sure to restart your Mac afterwards). To ensure that you're using the latest printer driver, check your printer manufacturer's website for updates.

4) Verify Your Chosen Printer
Make sure that your Mac is printing to the printer you expected it to use by verifying the printer choice in the Print dialog (from an application's File menu, choose Print).

5) Check the Print Queue
Find out if your print job has stopped for some reason. Click the printer icon in the Dock, or from the Apple menu, choose System Preferences, click “Print & Fax,” click the Printing tab, and click Print Queue, and see if a “Jobs Stopped” message appears in the resulting dialog. If so, click Resume or choose Start Jobs from the printer's menu.

6) Delete Print Jobs and Printers
Check the print queue to see if a particular file is holding things up. This can happen with very large files, so you may need to exercise some patience while your Mac and printer process the information. Click the printer icon in the Dock. If there's an issue with a print job in the dialog you may see an exclamation point next to it, select it and then click Delete to start the next job if there are others and then try printing it again. If that doesn't work, try deleting all jobs and then go print them again. If that doesn't work, try deleting the printer from the list and then adding it back (see “Setting Up a Printer with Your Mac,” above, if you forgot how to add a printer).

7) Check for Print Jobs from Other Users if Sharing
If you're printing to a shared printer, there may be other users with large print jobs in the queue ahead of you. If things are taking longer than expected, check with the other users to see if they're printing anything. If you have access to the computer that's sharing the printer or sending a print job that's tying up the queue, you can click the printer icon in that computer's Dock and click Hold to temporarily suspend the job and click Resume to start it again. Be sure to check with the appropriate person if you need to stop his or her print job.

8) Try Another Application or File
There could be an issue between your file and its application or the file itself. Open the file you wish to print in another application (such as TextEdit or Preview) and try printing it. If it prints, quit the original application and reopen it to see if printing now works. Or try printing a different file in the desired application to see if the issue is with the file itself. If the file is the issue, try saving another copy of it (choose Save As from the File menu) and then try printing that version.

9) Try Printing to Another Printer (If One's Available)
If you have another printer handy, connect it to your computer and see if you can print the desired document to it. If you're connected to a network that has shared printers, open the Print dialog (from an application's File menu, choose Print) and scope out another printer from the Printer pop-up menu to see if you can print to it.

10) Repair Disk Permissions and Restart Your Computer
Open Disk Utility (find it in /Applications/Utilities), select your Mac OS X startup volume in the resulting window, and click Repair Disk Permissions. Once Disk Utility has finished, try printing again. If you still can't print, sometimes a simple computer restart—or two—is all it takes to get things running smoothly again.