printer troubles from a switcher

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Hello everyone,

I am starting this thread for my mother-in-law. She just got a new iMac,and has been having trouble with her printer. I downloaded drivers from HP's site,and installed them,but it doesn't seem to have fixed anything. What she is telling me is that she used to be able to select print quality,and which tray the printer printed from. She would do this so she could draw from a second tray on the printer that has photo paper in it with a 5x7 size,but when she goes to print it didn't allow her to choose which tray,or quality. I tried doing a few things,but there is no where I can find to set preferences for the printer. She isn't too happy with her new Mac,and she is wondering if she just wasted a bunch of money. I told her we have had our iMac for three years with none such troubles that she has been experiencing,but she has had plenty. I downloaded the driver,and went through the installer. It all seemed to work just fine,but I am not sure where the utility folder,or whatnot is for this driver that I downloaded,so maybe it didn't work right. Any help on this would be appreciated.

Chris
 
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Location
Blue Mountains NSW Australia
Your Mac's Specs
Silver M1 iMac 512/16/8/8 macOS 11.6
Go to System Preference>Print and Fax and make sure the printer is appearing in the left hand column, If not hit the little '+' sign and see if you can get the HP selected as the default.
 
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It is showing up on the system preferences window,but she says it used to ask her what quality she wanted,and which tray to pull the paper from.
 
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Your Mac's Specs
iMac
printer problem

Hi,
I can definitely help you with this. However, I am not in front of my Mac at the moment. One question, which program is she using to print photos? There is a workaround that I discovered just the other day. I will check this post when I get home and send you detailed instructions.
 
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iMac
printer solution

Hi Chris,
Assuming your mother-in-law is using iPhoto have her do the following:
Hit File Print
A box will come up with the picture in it. Below the picture will be a button that says "Customize". Hit that. A new window will open
Go up to File Print again
You will see a different dialog box. If it is not expanded click the arrow alongside the box where you choose the printer.
1/2 way down the page in the center you will see a button that says "iPhoto"
Click on it.
1/2 way down this page will be a button that says "Paper Type/Quality"
Click on that. She will then have the boxes to choose paper type, quality, color and most importantly "Source" where she can choose her photo tray.
Hope this helps.
Gerry
P.S. If she works with photos a lot and wants to invest a little money I highly recommend Aperture.
Also, if she's frustrated learning the Mac have her check out lynda.com
For $25 per month they have wonderful videos that will teach her everything.
 

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