Can't print reports without Appleprint

ronnydubya

I'm running an OLD version of Quicken. I'm old and set in my ways and don't want to upgrade because I don't like newer Quicken's workflow. However, my old Apple LaserWriter Select 360 printer which uses AppleTalk is no longer connected to my Mac, so when I go to print a report I get the error "The document... could not be printed. A connection could not be made to the printer because AppleTalk is inactive or not available. Please set AppleTalk to active in the Chooser -8877"

How do I modify the report/application to allow me to print to the default connected printer which doesn't use AppleTalk?

jacobs

Wow! AppleTalk... The Chooser... System 7… MAC OS 9… it was all so advanced for its time, but seems so alien to me now. I'm afraid my memory of this 1990s era of Quicken software and Mac operating systems has apparently been mostly purged from my brain.

jacobs

Thanks for re-focusing me, RickO. I was just surprised anyone is still successfully running hardware and software this old. It sounds like Mac OS 9 (or earlier). If so, when you open the Chooser, can you select whatever printer is actually connected to your Mac? It sounds like the Chooser still has the LaserWriter Select 360 selected, causing the error when a print job cannot find that printer.

ronnydubya

Quicken: v7 1988-1996 (Intuit)
MacOS X: 10.2.1 Processor 800 Mhz Power PC G4 1983-2002

When you open Chooser you cannot select the (HP) printer that is actually connected to the Mac and the Chooser still has the LaserWriter Select 360 selected. But you can print to the HP printer from other applications.

jacobs

@ronnydubya It sounds like you're comparing applications which use the native Mac OS 10.2 architecture and those which are running in Classic (the ability to run Mac OS 9 applications in Mac OS X). Mac OS 10.2 uses the Print Center to set up printers, and uses a Unix-based architecture called CUPS to queue print jobs and communicate with printers. Classic does not use the Print Center/CUPS architecture at all, so selecting a printer for use in a Classic application still requires use of the Chooser.

Since your old version of Quicken requires Classic, then your issue is that you need to be able to select your printer in the Chooser. You haven't said what printer you have connected, but my guess is that the problem is that you don't have the appropriate printer driver installed -- and if it's a more modern printer, there likely isn't any such driver available. If there is a Classic/Mac OS 9 driver available for your printer, if it's one which can be manually installed via drag-and-drop in the Classic System folder, you can do this while booted normally in Jaguar. But some old some Classic printer driver installers will only run from Mac OS 9. I don't think you G4 Mac can boot natively in OS 9, so you may be out of luck if that's the case. But I'm guessing that you have a printer which doesn't have an OS 9 driver. What printer are you trying to use?

You might be able to use LaserWriter 8 to print to a Postscript file in your Classic application, and then use OS X to print the postscript file to your printer -- a two-step process. Unfortunately, I just don't remember all the details and fine points of this  from 20 years ago. In any case, it's clearly not a Quicken issue, and goes beyond the help you're likely to find here in this forum. You'll need to do some searching to find information on some Mac websites about printing from Classic applications under Jaguar. Best of luck!

-----

I'm sure you're well aware that you're living way out on the edge running a nearly 20 year-old Mac with similarly old software. I'm not out to lecture you about this, only to encourage you to come up with a plan to preserve your data (Quicken and anything else) in the event your Mac fails. The odds of a power supply or hard drive failure on a Mac of that age are pretty large, and if something does fail, you're at risk of losing all your data. Perhaps you already have such a plan, such as having another Mac of the same vintage (G4 or G5) and operating system (Tiger or earlier) with Mac Classic and a copy of all your data. There's no easy path for bringing your Quicken data into the current era of Quicken at this point. There may be options for running a virtual machine with Tiger installed, but there are significant technical challenges to achieving such a set-up; it's not something most Mac users could accomplish. 

ronnydubya

Great answers people. Thank you for contributing!

@RickO I can print to a post-script file but when I double-click it to open it all I see is code. I can copy it over to a MacBook and I can print from there, but that's too many steps. Adobe maintains PostScript printing software, called AdobePS, which I read is equivalent to Apple's LaserWriter 8.

@jacobs I have the G4 with my financial data completely offline for security. It used to have the LaserWriter Select 360 connected, but I can no longer find good toner for it. Now I have an HP LaserJet 1200 connected. I just found MacOS 9 drivers for it, but as you said I might not be able to install them.
Also, I was looking into the possibility of migrating Quicken v7 data to a newer version, but you said there's no easy path for bringing your Quicken data into the current era. Not sure what to about that since that seems to be the most logical direction.

ronnydubya

Looks like you can't download AdobePS from their website any longer [Removed - Link]