Bizarre solution for OfficeJet Pro K5300 problem when Word docs hang in the print queue spooling

Question

A bizarre solution to a spooling problem.
Problem:
Word documents sent to an HP Officejet Pro K5300 Series printer hang in the print queue, saying “spooling”. They do not print, and cannot even be cancelled.
Solution (Bizarre Solution).
The solution that worked for me was to rename the printer by removing the first space after “HP” in the printer’s name. When I did this, Word could then print to the printer. If the space is then re-inserted back into the printer-name then Word is still able to print!! I don’t know how, but it worked, and it worked on two separate installations! The full explanation is below with more options for testing that still need to be explored, or preferably explained by HP and or Microsoft.
First here is some background. My computer is an IBM NetVista 2.4GHz, P4. It has a 250GB HDD with lots of room and 2GB of RAM. My operating system is Win XP Pro with Service Pack 3. My anti-Virus in Trend Micro Internet Security 2009, updated regularly, (I turned it off while installing the printer software). I use Office Professional 97, with Office SP2b).
I bought a new HP Officejet Pro K5300 printer.
I installed the printer software, and followed HP’s directions strictly. I used the installation CD that was supplied by HP. My connection to the printer was USB.
The installation proceeded uneventfully and I printed a test page after it finished.
After that I printed a configuration page, then I printed a couple of photographs using Irfan View. The quality was great and I was pleased.
Then I tried to print a 2-page Word document, using Word 97, but nothing happened. No response from the printer, no error messages, just silence. I clicked on the printer icon on the task bar to look at the print queue and saw that my document was listed as “Spooling”, but it was not making any progress. I waited a couple of minutes but still no progress. I tried canceling it but it would not cancel/delete. The job on the queue would not respond to anything. I could not print it and I could not cancel it. The only way I could recover was to shut down Word, which flushed the queue and lost the job.
I tried this a few more times but with no success.
I did a Google search for this problem, and I found a few solutions. I tried them, but none worked. I checked HP’s website and found this problem listed, with some solutions from HP. I tried HP’s solutions, but they did not work either. In fact, when there was a Word document stuck “spooling” in the queue, HP’s diagnostic utility said that it could not even communicate with the printer, and suggested that my USB connection was bad. However, when I flushed the queue by shutting down Word, I could successfully send a Test Page to the printer, and I could print a detailed PDF from Adobe. So Word was the problem, not my USB connection.
After a pondering this problem over the next few days, and keeping in mind the fact that the default HP printer-name was “HP Officejet Pro K5300 Series”, I remembered that many years ago I could not get an Excel VB macro to select a printer, and print to it, if the printer-name had any spaces in it. I had noticed that the HP default printer name had 4 spaces in it, so I wondered what would happen if I renamed the printer by removing the spaces from its name.
So I renamed the printer to “HPOfficejetProK5300Series” (no spaces), and voila! Word could now print to it!
Then I wondered, if it was necessary to remove all of the spaces from the name, or just some of them, to get the printer to work, so I renamed the printer back to it’s default name in 4 stages, at each stage re-inserting one of the original spaces, and testing the printing. At each stage the printer kept successfully printing from Word, until I had re-inserted all four spaces and the printer’s name was back to being identical to the default name that it was installed with, but now it would print from Word on command.
So why was it that Word could not get the printer to print with the printer’s default installed name, but if I removed all of the spaces from the printer’s name, then re-inserted them, the printer would print from Word every time?
So I did another test.
I uninstalled the entire printer software package and installed the updated Full Feature software package, filename “OJProK5X00_Full_8_3.exe”, 159MB download from HP.
After the package was installed, Word could NOT print to the printer, but other programs like Adobe PDF reader, and Irfan View, could print to it. I tried each software package about three times each, with consistent results.
I then renamed the printer, but this time I just removed the first space after the letters “HP”, i.e., I changed the printer’s name from “HP Officejet Pro K5300 Series” to “HPOfficejet Pro K5300 Series”. After I did that Word could then print to it. I then changed the printer’s name back to “HP Officejet Pro K5300 Series” by re-inserting the first space, and Word could still print to it now.
I challenge someone from HP to read this and explain why Word won’t print to this printer until I rename the printer by removing a space, but can still print to it after the space is re-inserted!
Of course, there is another alternative. Perhaps I could have renamed the printer by removing or changing any of the other characters, instead of the spaces. But each test involves completely uninstalling and re-installing the software, and I have better things to do with my time.
This question was solved.
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Answer 1

What an amazing solution!
I recently purchased an HP Deskjet F4580 and had discovered that when using Word 97, it would print OK when using the Print icon but when trying to print using File->Print->choose page number or current page, Word would crash. Excel, Adobe etc would all print fine. I have spend many hours removing and then reloading the HP software and Office Professional software but this solution fixed the problem in a few minutes. PC is running XP Home SP3.
Just one thing I would add is that my computer has two accounts - one is the Computer Administrator account and the other is a Limited account. When I took out the space between HP and Deskjet so the printer became HPDeskjet F4500 series, I could then print from the Administrator account using either  the print icon or File->Print->choose page number or current page. When I switched to the Limited account, I would get the same crash when I tried File->Print->choose page number or current page (OK with icon). The Limited account mode does not allow the printer to be re-named.
I went back to Admin mode, re-classified the Limited account as a Computer Administrator account, logged on to this account and re-named the printer (in this case I took out another space so it became HPDeskjetF4500 series. Then it printed fine using the print icon or using File->Print->choose page number or current page. I then went back to the Computer Administrator account, re-named the printer to HPDeskjet F4500 and re-classified the second account back to Limited account mode. Now printing OK in both Computer Administrator account mode and Limited account mode.
Thanks again!