Problem:The computer fails to print when I go to the File
menu to Print
Solution:
Most random printing problems can be fixed by simply restarting
the computer to free up system memory, or by allocating more memory
to the program:
- Find the program you are trying to print in (Adobe PageMaker, Microsoft Word/Excel, etc.)
- Select the program in the Finder (click it *once*), and select "Get Info" from the File... menu.
- Pull the pop-up menu from General Information to Memory.
- Change the program's Preferred memory size in the Get Info window
Our recommendations for programs that are out of memory are to set the minimum size to the recommended, and the preferred size either the same or slightly higher. This should be more than sufficient, assuming you have enough RAM to facilitate this (you can see how much RAM the computer has by looking at "Built-in Memory" under the "About This Macintosh" window in the Apple Menu.
Another thing worth trying to improve memory errors is to go into the Chooser from the Apple Menu and select your printer, then enabling the Background Printing checkbox that you should see there.
If you do not receive an error message of any kind when selecting "Print" from the file menu, but are nonetheless not printing, you may have a spooling problem with your PrintMonitor. Go into the Spool Folder in your System Folder and see if there are any files in it. If you are using desktop printing, and are getting an error -192, see this page. Sometimes older printing jobs that failed or became interrupted and corrupt may be queued in front of your current print job and preventing it from printing. Trash any files you find in this folder, restart the computer, and try again.
