MacDraw II: LaserWriter Printing Troubleshooting Tips

If you're having problems printing to a Postscript LaserWriter (no printout or objects missing on the printout), try the following.

This information was provided by Claris Corporation on 16 March 1998, and incorporated into Apple Computer's Tech Info Library.
1) Go to the Chooser, select the LaserWriter driver (not the LaserWriter IISC driver). Under the text "Select a LaserWriter," make sure that the name of your LaserWriter is listed AND selected.

2) Turn off Background Printing [MultiFinder only]. (Go to the Chooser, select the LaserWriter, click Background Printing OFF). Try printing again. If the document prints correctly, you may be able to print using Background Printing by allocating more memory to Print Monitor. (From the Finder, click once on the Print Monitor icon, select Get Info from the file Menu, increase Application Memory Size from 72K to about 200K).

3) Check which LaserWriter driver version is being used. MacDraw requires LaserWriter 5.1 or higher. MacDraw Pro requires LaserWriter 6.01 or higher. Are both LaserWriter and LaserPrep of the same version (LaserWriter 6.0.2 and earlier versions only)? Is the version of PrintMonitor being used compatible with the LaserWriter and LaserPrep.

4) Check for multiple System Folders. If another System Folder is found (that contains another LaserPrep), remove it.

5) If LaserWriter 6.0 or higher is being used, try deselecting Color/Gray Scale by selecting Black & White in the Print dialog box.

6) Are any print spooling applications (other than PrintMonitor) running? If so, disable or remove them.

7) Does the document contain scanned images or other bitmaps? In Page Setup, try deselecting the Printer Effects, especially Graphics Smoothing and Faster Bitmap Printing.

8) Try copying and pasting everything to a new document. All the objects will paste into a single layer in the new document). Try printing again.

9) Try increasing the memory partition for MacDraw. To do this, quit MacDraw. Click once on the MacDraw application icon, then select Get Info from the file menu. Increase the application memory size by a few hundred K, close the Get Info window, then launch MacDraw and try printing again.

Published Date: Feb 18, 2012