With the introduction of Panther, there's yet another swathe of users whose printers are now unsupported. But rather than just chuck my printer out, I decided to use Classic to print my documents as PDFs. This has been noted before, but to make the process more seamless, I used OS X's PDF Workflow feature, which extends the existing "Save as PDF" print option. All you need is 10.2.4 or above, Adobe Acrobat Reader for OS9, the Classic environment, and OS9 drivers for your printer.
- Set up your printer under Classic.
- Create the folder /Library/PDF Services.
- Create an alias of Acrobat Reader for OS9, and put it in /Library/PDF Services. Rename it to 'Open as PDF in Classic' or something like that.
Now when you open your Print dialog box in any application in OS X, you get a little PDF menu icon. Click this icon, and you can choose "Open as PDF in Classic." A PDF is generated and automatically opened in Acrobat Classic. Print away!