Print Center Keeps Crashing

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jeepster485

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I bought an HP 3420 printer today, because I wanted a printer that was inexpensive for printing black and white documents, as my Epson uses too much ink. I installed the HP drivers and was trying to get the set Print Center up so I could print to the printer. Every time I went to add a printer and clicked on USB, Printer Center paused a moment and then the program disappeared with a dialogue "Print Center has unexpectedly quit." I uninstalled the HP drivers and restarted my computer and went back into Print Center and tried to go to USB and it worked again. Does anyone know why the HP drivers seem to be at fault? Also, how/where can I go to get the proper drivers so I can use this printer? Thanks!
 
I had exactly the same problem with the HP Deskjet 3820 at work. I downloaded an app called Print Center Repair (now version 2.0.3) (download it from Macupdate.com here) and Repaired Permissions, Cups Directory, and Spool Directory, then did the Delete Temporary Files and Preference Files options (these are all options with the PCR app).

I then booted up from my Jaguar Installer CD and repaired Permissions (system wide). And then did the prebindings thingy that optimises apps or something (gee, I'm technical aren't I!).

And I went back to Print Center and made sure to press the Option (Alt) key at the same time as pressing Add (I had to do this to add my Epson Photo EX with the CUPS GIMP Print Driver thingy, so thought it might also make a difference when adding the Deskjet 3820).

Then I was able to successfully add the printer without a hitch while the printer was connected to my Mac (via the USB cable). After I had added the printer I noticed that I had actually forgotten to turn the printer on... SO - I aren't sure which one of the above things I did that helped my successfully add the printer in the end.

Was it "Print Center Repair" that did it? Was repairing the permissions with Disk Utility or updating the prebindings the answer? Was it pressing the Option key when clicking on the Add button in Print Center? Or was it having the printer connected but not turned on? Maybe someone else knows the answer to that one for me.

I found the DJ 3420 driver here:
HP DeskJet 3420 Mac OS X driver (updated 2003-02-05). Best of luck - Zeal ;)
 
I checked HPs website and the driver on their website was much more recent than the printer driver I had. I downloaded the drivers and installed them and the printer actually was recognized in Print Center. So I was happy and went into AppleWorks to print a test document. It printed great, except for the fact the document was suppose to have 1" margins on all sides and it came out with .5" on the top, 1" on the sides, and 1.5" on the bottom. I tried creating a custom paper size with 1" borders on all sides, and it still printed with the same crazy borders. The only way I found I could get it to print the way I wanted it was by putting a 1.5" border at the top, .5" border on the bottom, and 1" border on the sides. Is there any way I can go about fixing this properly so I don't have to have dumb margins just to get it to print right?
 
Are you sure that the paper-size has been set to that which you are using?

Over here in New Zealand, the standard paper-size is A4, so we always have to change it from the usual factory default of US Letter.

You can set the default paper-size in the Preferences option under the Print Center menu. This sets it for all printers, but you can change this prior to printing via Page Setup... in whatever application you're using. Zeal :)
 
The default page size was set to US Letter. I also checked the page setup before printing and that was also set to US Letter. I was getting quite frustrated over this crazy margin thing, but that all ended after I found the greatest thing in the world. I stumbled upon an open source printer driver that supported my printer. After I installed the driver and restarted it found my printer. It cannot utilize the best color settings on my printer because they haven't gotten that far in the driver code writing or something like that, but all I wanted was mainly black and white printing. So after installing the driver and printing, the margin problem disappeared and I was finally getting wysiwyg print outs, which is all that I wanted. Thanks very much for your help Zeal...and if anyone happens to find this because of some crazy problems related to their printer driver..

If the driver from the manufacturer doesn't work, go to http://www.linuxprinting.org/macosx/hpijs/USB.html for an open source printer driver. Also, as Zeal mentioned, you might try http://gimp-print.sourceforge.net/MacOSX.php3 which is another open source printer driver.
 
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