Printing PDF Files takes forever

Question

I'm new to the mac world, but love it. It takes forever to print pdf files on my iMac. I'm using an HP3050 Laserjet, plugged directly into the iMac. Never had this problem with the printer connected to my Vista Laptop.
I started to print a 2 page pdf 9 minutes ago and still have not gotten a pageout of the printer. PDF File is only 132 KB.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated

Answer 1

David Goodman1 wrote:
It was happening with preview and adobe pdf viewer. I tried an experiment, unplugged the usb cable and re-set the printer to its defaults.
That solved part of the problem. It now prints pdf's quickly, but any document, word,pdf etc that I try to print, the printer now beeps and prompts for a manual feed, press enter for confirmation. After pressing the enter button on the printer whatever file I'm trying to print comes out.
Okay, the printer thinks that you're feeding paper from the manual feed slot, not from the paper tray. When you select 'Print', the printer dialog box should come up. There are two basic styles for the printer dialog box:
1 basic, which has seven items in it: the printer ID pull-down menu, which allows you to select printers if you have more than one printer; in my case, I'd have Brother HL-2070N, Brother MFC-440CN, Adobe PDF 8.0, and a few other items on the list. It would also show the printer presets pull-down, the four print system buttons (PDF, Preview, Cancel and Print) and the dialog control triangle.
2 complete, which can be access from the basic dialog by clicking on the dialog control triangle. This will zoom out the dialog box to include the full array of options available for that printer. What options show depend on which printer you have, but one of them will be a pull-down menu which usually has the name of the app you're trying to print from. One of the items on that menu will be 'Print Feed' or something similar. Select that item. The dialog will zoom out and show you the various print feed options. It is probable that there will be a checkmark next to 'manual feed' or something similar. Select 'automatic' or 'tray #1' or similar. Print normally.
Once you have printed something with the correct settings the print system will remember the settings you want and will keep them until you change them. Just remember that if you change them, the system will remember the new settings until you change them back.
Plus, printing #10 envelopes no longer works correctly, the address information only partially prints and is un-readable.
That's almost certainly because it things that it's printing letter-size paper from the manual tray. One of the settings under 'Print Settings' or similar should allow you to select the size and type of paper; if you select #10 envelope, it will adjust accordingly. Note that unless you specify otherwise, if you select #10 envelope the system will usually automatically select the manual feed for you. It will go back to whatever feed setting had been made before printing envelopes once you select a different type of paper. (At least that's how it's worked in every printer I've used for quite some time now.)
I'm going to plug the printer back into my Vista Laptop and see if it goes back to normal.
It's not hardware-related, it's driver-related, so you should be able to print from Vista without a problem.
If you do have a problem, let us know 'cause then the problem is not a driver problem. And if it's not a driver problem you may yet get to buy a new printer, 'cause fixing printer hardware is usually more expensive than just tossing the printer and replacing it. I would charge you at least $50/hour plus parts to fix this kind of thing. You can get a new printer for under $100. You make the call.
Is there any kind of "terminal" command I can use to re-set how the Mac is dealing with the printer?
if you really want to see the guts of the print system, you can go to the CUPS pages on your system, but you really don't want to do that unless you absolutely have no choice. The CUPS pages, the Common UNIX Printing System pages, on your system are available if you launch your web browser (any web browser) and go to <http://127.0.0.1:631/printers>. There's a whole lot of info in there, but playing inside there is not for the faint of heart.