Printing to many copies of the same file on Macs

Question

Printing to many copies of the same file on Macs

Hi Folks I am having a issue after grading from OS x 10.9 to OS X 10.11. When i go to print any file (*.doc, *.jpg, or *.pdf) If I am only trying to print one copy I get one copy. Here's the crazy part; If i try to print the very same file and select to print two copies I get four copies of the file. wait it gets better. If i go to print four copies I get SIXTEEN. I am very happy to know my iMac can do square root math but I don't need our professors killing rain forests to print a couple of files for a class. I have seen the on at least 6 different machines that were updated from older versions of OS X to the last couple of versions. If anyone knows of a fix for this that would be great. I await the words of the wise, as I am new to the tech side of Mac. I have about twenty years in PC support, and in the past year I am now taking on the wonderful World of Mac Computing and finding I have a lot to learn and happy to do as well. Incase you are wondering yes the printer settings are ok and I have removed and re added them. HP and Cannon are the two main ones I have found this issue on.

Thanks for any help offered,

Don

iMac with Retina 5K display, OS X El Capitan (10.11.3)

Posted on Mar 8, 2016 6:42 AM

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Answer 1

PAHU

Level 6

16,723 points

Mar 8, 2016 6:11 PM in response to Salisbury University IT

Since you mention you upgrading the Mac's from 10.9 to 10.11, then a reset of the printing system may be worth a try - assuming you haven't tried it already. Note that the reset will remove all printers from Printers & Scanners preference pane, but not the supporting drivers, so you will just need to add the printer/s again.

If the reset doesn't help then I would check that no Presets are selected in the print dialog. You want to test with it set to Default Settings. I would then select to make 4 copies but instead of hitting the Print button in the respective applications print dialog, you will see a PDF button and here you can select to Save as PDF. Does this action produce 16 pages?

I would also look at the print logs on the printers. Below is an example from a Canon imageRUNNER ADVANCE C5255. If you also have Canon imageRUNNERs then you will see a similar view when you connect to the copiers internal web page, called Remote UI or RUI in Canon speak, and select the System Monitor button and then select Print Logs. The fields labelled Original Pages, Output Pages and Sheets x Copies show how many pages were sent from OS X. In the case of 4 copies producing 16 pages, do you see 16 Original Pages?

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