LaserJet 2100 & Mavericks printing issue

Hi Sorry that I'm not able to help but I'm posting as I have a very similar problem. I have a new iMac with Mavericks (OS X 10.9.2). My HP Laserjet 2100 is connected to it using a Parallel Port to USB connection. The iMac recognised the printer, appears to have the right drivers, and printed a few documents when I first connected it up. Now, however, it just prints out %!PS-Adobe-3.0 %APL_DSC_Encoding:UTF8 % APLProducer: (Version 10.9.2 (Build 13C6 and then blank pages. Does anybody have a solution to this? Apple, do you?

Unfortunately, I got the same error message. What's frustrating is that the computer recognizes the printer.

Hi guys, the solution to all your problems (I have the same printer) is:

1. Go to system preferences, printers & scanners

2. Delete the current Laserjet 2100 printer using the minus sign below the list of printers

3. Use the plus sign to add the printer again but this time:

4. Name the printer what you like, location as well or leave that blank

5. In the "Use" field, choose "Generic PCL Printer"

whats going on is:

- the HP driver is only valid for OS X 10.7 as the latest os it supports

- the driver does default to PostScript level 2 which is what the printer has

- mavericks is attempting to send the printer postscript level 3 which the printer can't understand, the printer is too old 😟

- I can't find a way of forcing mavericks to use postscript level 2, even if choosing the "Generic Postscript Printer" driver

LImitations of the generic PCL driver is that you can only get it to do a max of 600 DPI, so graphics will look yuck if you're used to 1200DPI.

I followed steps 1 and 2 but I couldn't figure out how to add another printer. I tried to take a screen shot but couldn't do it. Could you include some screen shots.

If you got step 2 done, you found the minus sign yes? The plus sign is on the left hand side of the minus sign. Then a screen appears that let's you fill out the info from steps 4 and 5. I'm away from my mac right now but I can post screen shots in approx 16 hours

BTW, shift+command+f4 should take the screen shot if I recall correctly. Then just attach to a comment using the paper clip.

Attached is screen shot. (I didn't wait long enough last night for screen shot to be inserted.)

Yep, that's where you should be. Is you printer connected to the mac using a parallel port to USB like SSBfromGB has? If so, make sure the printer is plugged in and then turn it on. An entry for the printer should appear in that window. My LJ2100 is connected via a JetDirect box so it's effectively a network printer but I have tried the usb connection method with another printer I have.

If your LJ2100 has an inbuilt network card, or is using a JetDirect box, we have some extra info needed to get it working, so reply back with your connection type, and if it's USB-connected, does it appear after doing the above?

Guys, I found a more suitable driver inbuilt; if you add the printer again, in the "Use" field, choose "Select software..." and you should have "HP LaserJet Series PCL 4/5" in the list. It still only does 600DPI max with that driver but it might be better compatibility than the "Generic PCL Printer" driver in case of future issues.

I've had some success. Excel spreadsheet printed perfectly twice, but 4-5 times nothing happened after I hit Print.

I re-named the Printer with the PCL 4/5 driver as HP Laserjet 2100 Series 2 - B.

The 4-5 times nothing printed... if you click "Open Print Queue...", are they sitting in there?

YES. What should I do next?

I cleared out the queue and then the next "job" printed fine.

I'm hoping that this will solve the problem permanently. I am going to sleep shortly.

Thank you very much for your efforts.

Thank you so much. I had already tried everything in your posts without any luck. However, I've just selected "HP LaserJet Series PCL 4/5" in the list and printer off a Word doc no problem.

This solved my problem.

Glad to hear 🙂

FYI, a technical correction: it turns out our particular printers (not all LaserJet 2100 though) don't support postscript, otherwise HP's drivers would have worked. They do, obviously support Printer Control Language (PCL), up to version 6 depending on the model, which is why PCL 5 works but the HP driver only seems to do postscript. 🙂