Installing printer drivers

Greetings and thanks in advance to anyone who can help me on this.

I'm trying to hook up an hp psc 750 printer to my eMac. OS is OS X 3.3.4, I think. Several problems have cropped up, but the most basic is that I don't even know how to install new software on the eMac. Here's what I've done:

1. Plugged in the old printer, connected it by USB port to the new-ish eMac.
2. Inserted printer CD in the eMac and clicked on the All-in-one SetUp Assistant.
3. Watched as OS 9 started up and various pop-up boxes told me that everything installed correctly and the system restarted.
4. Wondered why SetUp Assistant didn't ask me any questions (shouldn't there be more to it?)
5. Opened a Word document and tried to print. Nothing.
6. Opened Printer List. It lists the PSC 750, but says "Driver not installed."
7. Went to hp.com, followed directions to uninstall what I'd installed and reinstall the stuff on the CD. Done.
8. Downloaded something called 700_636_EN.smi.hqx, which wasn't actually defined as a driver, but it was at the bottom of the instructions for installing drivers, so I downloaded all 40 M on a dial-up. Went to bed after the first hour yielded only 10 M.
9. Woke up and the 700_636_EN.smi.hqx is now an icon on my desktop, but doesn't seem to be installed.

Question 1: Er, sorry to be such a dweeb, but how do I install this and am I trying to install the right thing? I read on another post that maybe I should drag it into Applications, but when I try that I get this message: The 700_636_EN.smi.hqx could not be moved because Applications cannot be modified. Now, I can apparently move it into the Applications 9 folder, but that doesn't seem to convince the system that a driver has been installed.

Please help. Thanks for your patience.

lowlandpika

You don't need the OS 9 drivers, since you are running OS X. First I would try creating the printer queue, to see if the printer drivers are already installed. It has been a long time since I setup a printer. Go to your application folder, in there you should find a utilities folder. In that folder you should find the printer setup utility. Run that application. You should see an option to configure a printer.That should get you started.

Thanks, rman, for the nudge in the right direction. So I clicked on Printer Setup Utility and got a screen that had one icon highlighted at the top--Add Printer. So I clicked on that, and the resultant popup screen tells me that "Driver not installed."

Maybe my question should be why do I need to install a driver? I have the original CD that came with the printer and used it to try to install the printer software. Is a driver something separate? And if so, what's the thing I downloaded? Maybe it's not the driver, so that's why the eMac isn't recognizing that there's a driver installed?

Sigh. If anyone wants to point me to a basic text that I should have read before asking real humans questions, please do. I'll do my homework.

Thanks.

Thats one of the nice things about os X. you just plug stuff in, and it works.

ineedanewmac said:

Thats one of the nice things about os X. you just plug stuff in, and it works.

Click to expand...

Right. Perfect for technophobes like me and why I'm so unprepared for this failure. But I'm sure it's me not my operating system (which is OS X, but I have OS 9, too, and when run the installation disk OS 9 starts up automatically) or printer.

Actually, in a previous life I taught composition in PC-networked classrooms. There was always one student who could short out his or her PC. No matter how simple the task, somehow he or she would find a way not only to make things complicated but frequently to delete files, programs, you name it. I'm feeling more and more kinship with these folks as I stumble through Mac land, love it as I do, easy as it's supposed to be . . .

You probably need to go to HP's web site and get an OS X driver (if there is one).
Look on your CD and click once on the installer. If it says "Classic Application" in Get Info, it's for OS 9. If you download something for X, it should have .dmg in the name, .smi is an OS 9 image.

Edit: ok, went to hp's site. That is the right driver, you need to mount the image. Right-click/control-click on the .smi file on your desktop and select open with...and choose Disk Utility. It will mount the image.
Choose the installer for OS X and double-click it. It should install.

Installing printer driver

cradom said:

You probably need to go to HP's web site and get an OS X driver (if there is one).
Look on your CD and click once on the installer. If it says "Classic Application" in Get Info, it's for OS 9. If you download something for X, it should have .dmg in the name, .smi is an OS 9 image.

Edit: ok, went to hp's site. That is the right driver, you need to mount the image. Right-click/control-click on the .smi file on your desktop and select open with...and choose Disk Utility. It will mount the image.
Choose the installer for OS X and double-click it. It should install.

Click to expand...

That's it! [gleeful skipping around the home office--well, no, not literally, but definitely gleeful] I wonder how long it would have taken me to control-click on the icon. Without you-all, possibly forever.

Great, great thanks.