strange and annoying printing problem

[Kando]

I was asked to get a student's dept of education laptop printing in the classroom. No problem, joined the laptop to the school network, added the printer and thought I was done. Printed out a page of his homework and what I got was a thumbnail sized copy in the top left-hand corner of the page.

I checked the settings and it is set to print 100%, the printer settings are fine and no other computers in the room print that small. The margins are set at 1" all around, and print preview shows the text covering the full page.

How can I get the printing to be full sized, this is a special needs kid and he needs this as soon as possible.

Thanks,

laptop - Macbook
printer - Lexmark E342n
prints to - printer's ip address
using - Word for Mac

[Geek-9pm]

You did not say if the other laptops are also Mac Books.  If there were, you would have used of of them -Right?
Is the local network an Apple-based network?
You say it prints to the IP address of the printer. Please explain. How was the printer installed on the Apple Mac Book?

[Kando]

The school is 99 percent pc and the other computers in the room are pc desktops. Other laptops that have been set to print to rooms, even other Macs, do not have this problem.

The network is pc with Macs provided to teachers that requested them. The laptop in question was provided by the Dept of Ed and has the standard image for that model.

I installed the printer by going to system preferences-printers and clicking on the +. The drivers were already included in the os so I just had to input where to print. I used the ip address of the printer since it is static and since the wireless network is instructional the student will be able print from anywhere in the school.

[Geek-9pm]

OK, Now I understand what you are doing.
What you are doing is what you are supposed to do. However, in some cases, as you found, an Mac can not print to a network printer over wireless . This is documented on some Apple forums. (IP is not enough. Read on.)
To print the one document you could use a thumb drive to transfer it to another computer, PC. Likely you have already done that . Now you want a permanent solution the student can always use.
Frankly, I am not qualified to find the solution. Of course, the Mac will print directly to the Lexmark E342n using a USB cable. Is that right?

Here is a item that maybe relevant to your problem.
http://discussions.apple.com/message.jspa?messageID=8299639
Topic : Lexmark Wireless X4550 printer wouldnt work with Airport Extreme Network

Here is a detail found in that link.  It is not enough to have just the IP.
Example:
Device URL: lexnet3://192.168.5.110:1
You will have to read down through nit to find that detail.

[Kando]

Printing the one document is not important, printing in general is. The printer does have a usb port but since the student has classes in different rooms using a cable to print is not an option. The printer is not wireless, it is connected to a switch in his homeroom, along with two pc desktops. I think the solutions in your link are for wireless printers.

[Geek-9pm]

Other documentation indicates that the problem is even when the printer is wired. It is the laptop that has an issue. You can not just use the IP of the printer.

EDIT: This problem has been around for awhile. It may not the fault of the printer so much as it is hard to find how to install it. People report this issue with other makes of network printers, even direct Ethernet.

This is how my wireless network is now set up. Both my macbook and my PC are wirelessly connected to my D-Link WBR-1310 router (originally the PC was wired). I have an HP Officejet 5610 printer connected to my PC. So how do I set up my Macbook for wireless printing via my PC?

Exactly the same situation except with hp psc 2110 printer. Works fine with USB, but only garbage through network. Apple Support was absolutely no help, tried anything to get me off the phone. Blamed router and/or printer & told me to call Lynksys or HP. Seems to be a common problem. I've had the Mac less than a week & wondering what I got into.

And there are lots more like that...found in Google search.

[Kando]

Well that is great, could you provide the links that had those quotes so I can read through them? Anyone else have any knowledge of this or even better a way to solve it?

Thanks

[Geek-9pm]

Lost the links, but some are found on Apple support.
Do a Google on:
MacBook not print Network
use advanced search for all the words.
How about I do that for you?
http://tinyurl.com/4hb2u9f

The above link can be used over again by others looking for answers. Each time it is used the search is done again and may have new information. Try it again in a few days. The most relevant are the first ones you see.

He is one that stood out. (Was not in the first few pages.)

Macbook printing kills network System. ... down (the entire network, not just disconnecting the macbook), and the print job never ...
http://hintsforums.macworld.com/archive/index.php/t-72963.html

[Kando]

The most relevant?

The question is wrong so the answers are wrong.

I tried "macbook not printing full size" and have a possible answer. The Comments may be turned on and they should be turned off. When the kid brings in the laptop again I will test and let you know.

[Kando]

The solution raises even more questions, but I refuse to ask them.

Got the laptop and went through all the solutions I had in hand from here and other places, nothing worked. Then I made the test page I was printing TWO pages and then came up thumbnail size on the same page.

DING DING

I checked the settings in the printer and it was set to print 16 to a page. Now the kicker, it only printed that way from the Mac laptop and not the pc desktops. I changed it back to 1 to a page and now the laptop works like all the rest.

Stick a fork in this one...

[Geek-9pm]

Thanks for sharing.
This will make a food example of 'tis not what you think tis'.