HP LaserJet P1005

Question

Level 1

63 points

HP LaserJet P1005

New printer. Followed instructions and ran HP installation disc. (I wish I'd just plugged it in and seen what happened.) It did work - once or maybe twice.
Printing a document prints the first 2 letters of each paragraph in triple-width font and triple-width indentation, leaving right half of the page blank.
Printer prints a test page OK.
Document prints fine on Epson DX7450.
I've tried disconnecting USB, deleting HP P1005 from 'Print & Fax', restarting Mac, and plugging in USB. Same problem.
I've downloaded most up-to-date driver from HP website. No difference.

Any Suggestions?

G5 dual, Mac OS X (10.5)

Posted on Feb 23, 2009 3:56 PM

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Answer 1

Mar 14, 2009 8:58 AM in response to stork27

Yay! I think I've solved it!

Thing is it seems like the 1.0.6 driver simply doesn't work.
However, following this link http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=1917280&tstart=60 I found an older driver number 1.0.4.

Uninstalled 1.0.6 as described above: Deleted the printer from the System Prefs, then deleted the .pkg file from Library/Receipts. Then, added the printer again, let it install the 1.0.4 -- and to my surprise:

Things seem to come out right! I hope I'm not jinxing this now, and that things won't stop working. But for now... keep your fingers crossed...

Anyway. Thought you might want to know. If I don't post here again, things kept looking good.

/LA.

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Answer 2

Mar 4, 2009 6:54 AM in response to stork27

Happy (oh well) to hear someone with the same problem!

Recently bought an HP LaserJet P1505 (which according to the manual is essentially the same printer as the P1000 series) and downloaded the latest driver, installed it without problems, and even printed the test page, which worked fine.

The problem then starts when printing from any program at all: as you say, Stork, everything comes out horizontally elongated, with everything printing at least 400% too wide, resulting in most of the content ending up outside the paper (and the content staying inside being extended and ugly and only the leftmost part of the page).

(Too add some further confusion, I'd say there's also a second level of the problem: Things that should still fit on the page don't always print after all.
I think this is because the *bounding box* of every object is interpreted correctly, it's just the *graphic content* such as images and characters that are drawn out. Which means that even though with its faulty width a certain text should keep going past the edge, it might get cut off mid page because that's where it should end had its proportions been kept intact...)

Doing some research, I'm guessing the reason the Test Page prints correctly is because it doesn't actually use the HP driver, but some generic CUPS driver residing on the system (please correct me if I'm wrong here).
However, hoping to find a CUPS driver on the web, it seems the P1000/P1500 series aren't supported by CUPS (again, nothing would make me happier than if I'm wrong...)

Does this make sense to anyone? Anyone knows how to solve this?

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Answer 3

stork27 Author

Level 1

63 points

Mar 5, 2009 3:05 PM in response to LatteAddict

I can get this printer to work on a 450 MHz PowerPC G4 running OSX 10.4.11. Connected it, downloaded the most recent driver from the HP website, installed driver and it seems to work perfectly.

On a dual 2.5 GHz PowerPC G5 running OSX 10.5.6 it behaves as above.

I've tried deleting the printer and re-installing the driver. I've tried re-setting the printing system and adding the printers back.

The HP website says that the driver provides "Full printing support for Mac OS X v10.3, v10.4, v10.5 PPC and Intel processor Macs". A reviewer on the amazon.co.uk website claims to have it working on a Macbook running OSX 10.5. So, why can't I get it to work?

Maybe I'm dreaming but I think it worked once on the day I bought it and never since. I feel like I should uninstall everything and start again. Where is the driver kept? Can I just erase it? Is this crazy? Can I use Time Machine to go back to the day before I bought it?

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Answer 4

Mar 5, 2009 4:47 PM in response to stork27

This from HP, this is for a different printer, but the procedure remains the same
Download your driver file first.
unplug your pinter
Delete any files for the HPxxx in "/Library/Receipts" (such as "hp LaserJet 1020 Series.pkg")
Delete any files for the HP xxx in Printer in "Printer Setup Utility"
Run the DMG file, it does say "hp Laserjetxxxx Series.pkg", but run it anyway.
Add the HP by going to System Preferences, then selecting "Print & Fax"
in "Printer Setup Utility", select HP LaserJet xxx. If the printer does not show up on the Printer Setup Utility, you may need to select Browser on the same dialog box and click on the HPxxx name there.
Click add and you're done!
You may need to unplug the printer cable and plug it in again to prompt Print Setup Utility to search for new drivers.

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Answer 5

Mar 14, 2009 6:58 AM in response to Donald Palmer

Thanks for the tip, but unfortunately, this doesn't help.

Obviously, the instructions from HP were created for OSX 10.4, since it talks about the "Printer Setup Utility" that is no more.
Follwing the instructions but replacing the Printer Setup Utility with System Settings where needed still didn't help: The printer still prints the page contents with a ridiculous width...

It's almost like the printer and the driver don't agree on the printer's horizontal resolution, so that the driver keeps feeding it with too many pixels to line up across the page. But that's just a guess. Anyway, the problem still remains, and my printer sits unused...

Is there really no solution to this?

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Answer 6

stork27 Author

Level 1

63 points

Mar 15, 2009 4:45 AM in response to Donald Palmer

Thank you Donald. As LA says, this seems to relate to OS 10.4, but, even adapting the instructions for 10.5 makes no difference.

Deleting the relevant xxx.pkg file in "/Library/Receipts" doesn't get rid of the installed driver. If I delete the HP P1005 from "Print & Fax", disconnect the pinter USB and then reconnect, the P1005 reappears in "Print & Fax" and claims to have a P1005 driver. So it must be in there somewhere because I haven't re-installed anything.

I've tried re-installing from the CD that came with the printer to get back to an "old" driver with no effect. I presume I haven't managed to un-install first.

If I delete the printer from "Print & Fax" and then try to add it back again, It finds the printer and offers "HP LaserJet P1005" as the driver. If I try to select another driver, "HP LaserJet P1005" isn't in the list. Does this mean that the driver is in the wrong place, or has it been removed from the choices because it was already selected as first choice?

Library/Printers/PPDs/Contents/Resources/ contains 988 files including 3 "HP LaserJet Pxxxx.gz" files, but no "HP LaserJet P1005.gz" file. Can anyone explain?

This means that if I add the P1005 using a different driver and then try to change the driver, there is no P1005 driver available for selection. If I add the P1005 using the P1005 driver, it is greyed out in the "Print & Fax/Option & Supplies/Driver/Print Using" box, making deleting the printer the only way to change the driver.

The following drivers say that they are "sending data" but the printer remains dead:
Generic Postscript Printer
Generic Postscript Printer, 1.3
HP LaserJet 1005 Foomatic/foo2zjx

The following drivers say that they are "printing page" but the printer remains dead:
Generic PCL Laser Printer, 1.3

I haven't tried deleting my functioning Epson Inkjet printer to see what happens because it works. However, it's driver is also greyed out in the "Print & Fax/Option & Supplies/Driver/Print Using" box.

Clearly printers are too complicated an issue for a simple mind like mine. The only solution remaining is to take the printer to the bottom of the garden and use it as target practice.

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Answer 7

Mar 16, 2009 12:16 AM in response to stork27

Oh. Sorry. My mistake.

The link is http://driverscollection.com/?file_cid=399489231573f9b4ad62f5159c3

Hope this helps for you too. Please report back and let's hope we found a solution!

/LA.

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Answer 8

Mar 22, 2009 9:24 AM in response to stork27

SADLY, this proved to be true...

...only until i re-booted my computer.

Now... guess what? Using the 1.0.4 driver gives me the exact same problem!

This explains someone saying (was it here or in some other forum?) that they remember the 1.0.6 driver working once, then starting to behave badly — because yes, that's obviously the case. If the computer is restarted, then after that the driver doesn't work. And this whether it's 1.0.6 or 1.0.4...

Okay. Frustration is now huge. Is there really, really, really no solution to this?

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Answer 9

Mar 25, 2009 11:05 AM in response to LatteAddict

The version 1.0.5 driver that came with the installation CD works fine with Leopard (10.5.6) and this printer when it's directly connected to my computer. Now if I could only find a CUPS/Gutenprint driver that would allow me to use it when it's connected to the PC in my office . . .

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Answer 10

stork27 Author

Level 1

63 points

Mar 29, 2009 2:07 PM in response to LatteAddict

I'm not sure what I've done but it now works (almost). I disconnected the USB and deleted it from 'Print & Fax' while waiting for the address for the old driver to be posted.

Before trying to install a new driver I just plugged the USB back in. The printer reappeared in 'Print & Fax' and it now works. I've held off replying for a week to see if it's a fluke. The only fault is that it won't obey the command to print odd or even pages only. I can live with that.

I'm sorry if anyone is looking here for a solution because I don't know why it is working. I'm sure I tried this before without success. Perhaps it's magic. What you need to do is threaten the printer with death by target practice.

Good luck.

Stork

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Answer 11

May 25, 2009 2:24 AM in response to stork27

*In fact, I think I have finally found the solution!* This is fully repeatable, and allows me to use my P1505 without the problems described above.

First, print to another HP printer. You don't have to own it, or have it where you are — I use an HP 1200 at work, and that works for me.
...obviously, nothing will print. But. That printer's queue will start running, and when it does, printing to P1505 works too.

So: as long as there is another (good) HP Printer active, i.e. present in the dock and when alt-tabbing, using the P1505 (et al) driver works too.

Once you empty the HP1200 queue and quit the "program", making the HP1200 icon disappear in the dock and in alt-tab, printing to P1505 goes back to the distorted, elongated mess again.

Hope this helps! It works for me!

/L.A.

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Answer 12

greg sahli

Level 7

25,508 points

Feb 24, 2009 4:36 AM in response to stork27

Try Reset Printing System and then add the printers back.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT1341

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Answer 13

stork27 Author

Level 1

63 points

Feb 24, 2009 2:11 PM in response to greg sahli

Thank you, Greg. Tried it and no success. Epson inkjet works fine after reset but HP laser doesn't. It stretches the left 25% of the page to fill 100%.

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Answer 14

stork27 Author

Level 1

63 points

Mar 14, 2009 11:22 AM in response to LatteAddict

Hi LA

Can you re-type the link. This link is to this thread.

Stork

Where do I get the older driver?

Message was edited by: stork27

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