Printer drivers, help!

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I'm pretty sure I selected the option not to install printer drivers when I installed my operating system. Alas, today i ran Disk Inventory X to see what was taking up space in my Mac and there it was 1.6 GB of printer drivers. I'm ok with that, it doesn't really bother me, so I'll just leave them there.

Still, my HP Deskjet 1280 doesn't seem to like my Mac. I connected it via USB after I found out I indeed had 1.6 GB of printer drivers on my disk, and it immediately recognized the printer. However, I tried printing and it does nothing. The printer just sits there quiet, there won't even be an error on the printing jobs window, the printer just sits there doing nothing while the printing jobs window says it is printing. I'm not sure why this happens, I used to have the drivers from my printer's CD installed and it did the same thing, it only printed sometimes, most of the times it wouldn't, so I just uninstalled the printer drives that I had installed from the CD, but I'm guessing I still have the printer drives that came with Mac Os X. My Deskjet really seems to hate my Mac...

I'm guessing because Mac OS X comes with the drivers it is not a driver problem? My question is, surely this isn't happening because i unchecked the install printer drivers option when I installed mac os x, right? I mean, if I have 1.6 GB worth of printer drivers it's because they are indeed installed, and if the mac recognizes the printer when I connect it via USB it's because it really is installed, right? So why won't it print?

Thanks and sorry for the long post!
 
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Thank you so so much, that was really helpful! :D I was getting sick of loosing hours of work putting all my files in a USB pen and printing from my mom's PC whenever I wanted to print a school project, thank you :)
 

cwa107


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Assuming you're using OS X 10.5, try downloading this driver, which is Leopard-specific.
 
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