Epson Stylus Photo won't print to CD!
I previously posted the solution that worked for me here (skip to the Jan 19, 2007 entry):
Printing: CDs and DVDs
To reiterate, here's what worked for me:
When I origially bought my Stylus Photo R220, it worked perfectly, CDs printed just fine. I suddenly developed "The EPSON printer driver dealing with CD printing is not installed" problem and could not for the life of me figure out what I had done that could have suddently prevented me from printing on CDs yet still was able to print on paper.
I read everything I could find on the web about it, but there was no clear answer. It all seemed like voodoo solutions to me. I emailed Epson with the same complaint from two different email addresses. I figured that way I would get answers from two different tech support guys and between the two of them hopefully come up with some kind of solution.
Well it worked. On guy sent me the party line answer "Reinstall the driver" yada, yada. BUT the second guy, though not hitting it on the head, gave me a clue to how to fix the problem when he said that I MUST select EPSON USB. I thought that was interesting so I went into the printer install dialog to see what I might have been doing wrong. Here is what you need to do:
1. To be safe, first UNinstall as much of your printer software as you can. First, delete the printer from your printer list. On a Mac you can do this by going to System Preferences > Print & Fax and select the printer and click the "-" square.
2. Run the Epson driver installation software. ALSO, make sure you have installed the EasyPrint software. To ensure that it is installed, on the Epson disk, go to the folder Titles > EasyPrint > English > Installer and run that Installer.
3. Then go System Preferences > Print & Fax and click the "+" square to add the printer.
4.
HERE IS THE IMPORTANT PART that no one tells you: DO NOT select the printer from the printer list in the printer browser window!!! INSTEAD, click the "More Printers" button at the BOTTOM of the window!!! On the NEXT window, select EPSON USB in the pulldown menu and click the EPSON printer that shows up there.
That's what I did and then I was able to print to CDs no problem.
Afterward, I realized that the reason I suddenly had lost my ability to print to CDs was that at some point when I went to print a letter using
Microsoft Word, it kept stoppng my printer queue. I had to print to a pdf file and then the pdf file would print just fine!!! I figure maybe something got corrupt in a printer preference, so what I had done was delete the printer from the print list and then re-select the printer from the obvious place; The list in the printer browser after you click the "+" square. BIG MISTAKE. You MUST select the More Printers button and select EPSON USB from the pulldown menu. The problem with Word had nothing to do with file corruption.
Instead, the problem was that for some reason I had 8.5x11 selected as my paper size, and when I change it to US Letter, everything printed just fine!!!
Anyway, I have no idea why Epson made their software such that you can't selet the printer right there where it is displayed in the printer browser window, but instead have to ignore what seems like the obvious choice and go through the "back door" by selecting More Printers, etc.
Go figure!
Phil
PS: If this helps you, PLEASE send me a line at
[email protected]. It would be nice to know that all this work actually helped someone ELSE too, because I know how frustrating this problem can be if you are hit by it.
