"Word is connecting to the printer..." forever

I get this same message, but mine occurs when I try to save a document. It doesn't happen every single time, but it happens often enough to be a real annoyance. I work as a writer and editor, so it's a big setback when I have to force-quit and lose material I've written. (A word processing program that won't allow you to safely save is useless!) If anyone can recommend a fix for this, or a competing word processing program they like, I'd be glad to hear it.

Hi Wendy -

Basics first:-) Word must have a default printer set in order to run at all. Something is preventing Word from reaching the print services & that's what's causing it to hang. As suggested by what you report about Printer Setup Utility, that's where the problem lies & once you resolve that you should find that Word is happy again.

Make sure you have OS X fully updated using the Combo updaters appropriate for your type of Mac. Also check the mfr's web site to see if there is an update available for your printer driver.

Additionally, repair disk permissions (regardless of installing any updates or not).

It would also be a good idea to make sure you have Office fully updated, but like I mentioned above it is quite likely the victim rather than the villain.

If this doesn't correct the problem there may be corruption of the print driver or other printing support files.

HTH |:>)
Bob Jones
MS MVP [Office:Mac]

Yours is a totally different problem, but still most likely not what you think. Similar to the other post, Word simply calls for cooperation from the OS in order to save a file. In your case the OS is not responding properly & causing Word to wait as a result of hardware or software maladies. There are any number of possible causes, especially if there is a network involved, but you, too, need to start with the basics:-)

Reapply the 10.4.11 Combo update, repair permissions & run Disk Utility's Verify Disk routine - or better yet, Disk Warrior or TechTool Pro if you have them. I'd also recommend that you back up any important files - this behavior is sometimes indicative of a drive that's going up. Hopefully you can resolve it before that happens:-)

Regards |:>)
Bob Jones
MS MVP [Office:Mac]

No, that's not what I wrote:-)

There must be a default printer established (driver installed & selected as the default printer in Printer Setup) in order for Word to even launch. However, the printer need not be turned on, connected or even available at all.

Saving involves a different aspect of the OS. See my 2nd post in this same thread which has to do with the Save issue, whereas the first post pertains to a printer-related issue.

Regards |:>)
Bob J.
MS MVP [Office:Mac]

But why does Word need to "connect to the printer" at startup and then at random intervals? It's one of those features of the software that make no sense to users and which contribute to its instability.
George

I'm having this same issue and tried your solutions. The disk verifier came back with a response of Volume Passed Verification. So, that means that nothing was done to correct the issue with "Word is connecting to Printer..." Are there any other suggestions as to correcting this issue? I have a lot of papers for school that I have to end up re-writing portions of because Office wants to be temperamental. Is there anything to fix this? It's becoming more than an annoyance...

"Word is connecting to the printer" hang problem fix (at least it's working for me so far -- also, this is from the macosxhints forum):

1) Quit Word

2) Open up a terminal window

3) Find the PID of cupsd via ps -A | grep "cupsd"

4) Kill the cups process via sudo kill PID

5) Restart it using sudo /usr/sbin/cupsd -L

6) Restart Word

Also, from macosxhints, if you disconnect from the network, it may recover. This is helpful if you are about to lose a lot of work...

And, can someone explain to me the suggestion above. How do I kill the PID, and which one is it?

Re: my question above - I figured it out, I think: The PID is the number on the left, such as "223" in my case. So, when you look up the PID# using:

ps -A | grep "cupsd"

... and you get:


223 ?? Ss 0:00.06 /usr/sbin/cupsd -L
897 p1 R+ 0:00.00 grep cupsd


... you then kill using something like:

sudo kill 223


Then restart using the directory address:


sudo usr/sbin/cupsd - L


I suppose that was obvious to most. So far, this suggestion, along with resetting my printer to a local usb printer, fixed the problem.

I'm wondering, is happening only to people switching from networks with DIN A4 printers to US Letter printers...?

Hi,

I faced this problem many times and the best (and the simplest) way to solve it is to let the computer an hour or so, go to get a coffee or a nap and come back, it should work. This was happening every time I had a new printer to the network. Then when I open a world file without being connected to the network, and I try to save, word crashes (on the force quit window, word is not responding) and display the now famous message "word is connecting to the printer". I stopped to panic, and relaxed with a good book for a period from 30 minutes to an hour meanwhile the computer figures out that there is no printer to connect to. This works, let me know if it helps... Enjoy.

I get the same thing. I'm running leopard, and i just did full maintenance this morning.

Is that to say that Word will not save documents without a printer connected? I'm having similar issues. Thanks.

I applied the above fix, and it worked, but the problem recurred after about a week...