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A workaround for printing errors over AppleTalk
Authored by: hschickel on Mar 24, '03 02:26:24PM

The specific problem with the HP4M is that the ppd included with MacOSX is defective. Download the ppd from the following link:

http://cvs.sourceforge.net/cgi-bin/viewcvs.cgi/*checkout*/lpr/ppds/hp/Attic/HP_LaserJet_4.ppd?rev=HEAD&content-type=text/plain

Place it somewhere easy to find (I use /Library/Printers/MyPPDs/HP/HP4M_V4.PPD) and manually select it when you create your printer. This will give you full Appletalk capabilities at 600dpi resolution.

Other workarounds:

1. Lower the resolution to 300dpi.

2. http://www.linuxprinting.org/macosx/hpijs/ - install the foomatic system and set your printer up as an IP printer. If you have a fast machine you'll find that allowing ghostscript to do your PS processing is much faster than using the very old (but mostly reliable) version found in the HP4m.

Hugh



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A workaround for printing errors over AppleTalk
Authored by: hschickel on Mar 24, '03 03:03:17PM

This ppd issue has been bugging me for a while. I filed a bug report with Apple today. Hopefully they will swap out their ppd for the one from hp.sourceforge.net. The hp license seems to allow for that without restriction.

Hugh



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A workaround for printing errors over AppleTalk
Authored by: barryjaylevine on Mar 24, '03 10:27:04PM

Unfortunately, 300dpi did not resolve the issue. Take a simple draw document, preview it (so it's now a pdf), and it will choke the 4M via AppleTalk. It is, most assuredly, AppleTalk. The PPD I used was from HP and not from Apple (and it still choked). I could use any PPD (Apple's or HP's or, as I ended up using, the Generic PPD) once I enabled IP printing and ignored AppleTalk.

Note that we still can use AppleTalk to tranfer files, if we wish, because in this case, it's two Macs with up-to-date software talking with each other. The LaserJet 4M has no chance to update its AppleTalk ROM so IP printing was the answer. Lucky I had that MIO card!

Barry



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A workaround for printing errors over AppleTalk
Authored by: hschickel on Mar 24, '03 11:13:00PM

Barry - give the ppd from sourceforge a shot.

Hugh



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