Quark Forums

Hello All, this is my first post to this forum.

I am running Quark 7.5 on Mac OS X 10.6.2.

I have a Dell Laser Printer 5100cn (don't ask why, it's a pile of ****), which I have got working by using the original driver from Samung (Samsung CLP 770 PS).

I have downloaded and installed the CUPS PPD for the Dell and located it in the Auxiliary location, and the Utility PPD can see it, as can the Print Dialogue.

THE PROBLEM IS .. when I print (or use the Imposer, which is really why I'm trying to do this), it says "Cannot Access the Xpress Preferences File [12]".

This is, I think, a misleading error message.

When using a virtual printer on 127.0.0.1, it works fine, even when using the Dell PPD.

So what is it?

 Any ideas?

 Thanks in advance.  It's driving me mad.  Quark error messages OUGHT TO BE better than this.

Steve

 UPDATE

I've narrowed it down.

When I use a "Generic Postscript Driver", it drives the printer, but with rubbish.

When I change the driver to "Samsung CLP 770 PS", it tells me "Cannot access Preference File".

 All I did was change the driver. What's that got to do with Quark?

This MUST be a misleading error message, mustn't it?

Steve

 ANOTHER UPDATE

I downloaded a replacement driver from drivercollections.com that is specified for Dell 5100cn (Dell, c**p that it is, does not make one for Mac).

I now no longer get the "cannot access preferences file" message.

Quark now prints to the Dell, the job appears on the print queue, then .... disappears from the Print Queue and Quark crashes.

This is a poor bit of Quark 7.5, which is otherwise excellent.  The error message is spurious and it crashes.

This can happen in some cases while QuarkXPress tries to read the active printer driver. The issue is limited to QuarkXPress 7.

You can resolve this issue by changing the default printer driver for QuarkXPress. The best way to do that is to install a Virtual Printer and set that as default.

This does not affect any functionality of the installed printers. However you will have to go through an extra step of selecting the actual printer while printing.

You may read the instructions on how to add a virtual printer at the following Quark Knowledgebase Article:

http://support.quark.com/knowledgebase/ViewKBArticle.aspx?kbarticleid=bc63f28b-1c94-de11-93a0-00155d642a02

I hope this will help.

 Thanks, Sarbjit.  Yes, it has helped to some extent. (It's an odd workaraound, not at all intuitive!)

 Q no longer crashes and I don't get the error message.

 But my print job appears on the queue and then vanishes!  But this must be to do with the printer or driver, I would think.

 Stephen

Hey Stephen. What happens if you send your job as ASCII and not Binary or Clean 8-bit? It's in the print dialogue box in the data popup menu. 

 Thanks for the suggestion, eyoungren.

 I cant figure out which dialog you are referring to.

Steve

 UPDATE

The print *appears* to go to the printer, but then disappear from the print queue. Quark does not crash. That's a step forwards.

Printer works fine for Acrobat and other apps.

v. odd.

 Steve

Could you please try exporting the file to PDF.

Steps: File -> Export -> Layout as PDF. It that works with the virtual printer set as default, try swithching the defalut printer your Dell Printer and Export as PDF again. Please post any difference that you observe. This would give us an idea whether printer driver is part of the issue or its something else.

 "Export"ing to PDF has never been a problem, using either the Samsung driver or the new driver.

To repeat, the problem is now limited to the job disappearing from the print queue, having been printed "successfully" by Quark on the new print driver.

Sometimes Q crashes as well, at that endpoint.

Are you getting the "bug reports" that are being generated?  Not sure if they are transmitted to you.

My main reason for following this route has been to get the Imposer working, becuase without it I am limited to using Acrobat "Print as Booklet", which gives me no control over the Gutters and Margins. But actually, becuase PDF Printer is no longer available (in Snow Leopard, documented elsewhere), the Imposer can only print directly to the printer. I have posted on another forum about my difficulty of getting QPC 1.1 installed - so I have problems on another front also :-(

 Thanks for your help, guys. I am away now for a week's holiday, so I will read responses on my return.

Happy holidays!

Steve

I would like to clarify that QuarkXPress 7.x is not tested on Snow Leopard and niether is Quark Print Collection. Both of them are not certified to work on Snow Leopard.

The only version supported officially and certified to work with Snow Leoprad is QuarkXPress 8 (most recent version is QuarkXPress 8.12).

You may also note that we have not shipped a version of QPC that is compatible with QuarkXPress 8.

You may either have to upgrade to QuarkXPress 8 and use a third party imposing utility or downgrade the OS to Leopard.