Expert: Amy - 4/7/2004

Question
I'm using a powerbook G4 which is an OSX.2.1 and was given an educational version of Adobe illustrator to see if I liked it. I made up some flyers, and am unable to print them off. I have a buble jet printer from canon, BJC-85. When I try to print, it pops up with a screen that says "printer-laserwriter" "destination- printer" ect.  my printer is not given as an option . I'm fast regretting letting my friends convince me to get a Mac. It's a good little computer, we just don't speak the same language. When I called aple support, they recomended that I download Adobe illustrator 8.7 off the internet. I am still getting the same messages. I tried calling the adobe support, but would have to pay for the help. ARGH! I'm not going to buy the thing for myself if I can't get the silly thing to print!  

Answer
Hi Erin,

Other people are having the same problem as you with non-postscript printers very recently, and as of yet, there is no answer posted at the Adobe Forums website (that's a free service, by the way).  www.adobe.com  

People are working around the problem temporarily by saving as a PDF file and opening/printing from Acrobat reader.  It's a work-around but it shouldn't have to be this way!

The only thing I could find was a looooooooong general list of things to do for printing problems. We'd be in better shape if you did have a real printing problem - but you can't even get that far. What I feel is happening is a conflict between the printer driver and AI.

So I'd first try reinstalling the latest Cannon driver. Make sure you have the latest version, while you're at it:

http://www.usa.canon.com/html/conCprTechSupport.jsp?item=6630&qc=true&modelid=66...

Go the Mac Drivers section there.

If you have background printing on, turn it off (in Chooser, I think - I haven't been behind the wheel of a Mac for awhile) and see what happens. I apologize if they've changed the name of it since I Mac'd; what I'm trying to get you to do is turn off printer spooling and print directly to the printer.  Also, how is your printer connected to your powerbook - infrared, USB?

Please try that driver thing first and write me back! Use the Acrobat workaround until then?
-Amy Pace