Problems with Word for Mac.

[AdamZ]

Frustraion!!! I have a desktop PC my daughter has a mac laptop Macbook I think. We got her the microsoft office disc for mac so now she can type in word. BUT when she tries to print through wireless to our dell printer attached to our desktop pc it nothing happens.

We click print on the Mac in word and we select dell printer and this horizontal blue and white barberpole appears the acts as if its sending the document to the printer but nothing happens on the other end. I know squat about Macs and only a little bit of squat about PCs.

To make matters worse I had her just email me the word doc so I could print it from the desk top. I got the email and file then the computer said I needed my small office XP disc to install a converter so I put the disc in I suppose the converter installed ( it said it was) but when I open the file I get some funky stuff lots of little boxes and some weird characters.

Any thoughts on either of these subjects?

 

[rpadula]

Adam,

Somebody else more knowledgeable of mixed networks will probably have to chime in. Can you please tell us the following:

1. Which make and model of router?
2. Which version of Mac OS? (click on the Apple in the menu bar at the upper left corner of the screen, and select "About this Mac" from the pulldown menu)
3. Which version of Office is on the Mac? 2008?
4. What model printer?
5. Which Office are you running on your PC?

That's all I can think of now. This is going to have to involve turning on print sharing on your PC, but a quick Google search looks like Macs and Dell printers don't particularly play nice.

A couple of articles: one from Microsoft, and another Google result.

 

[AdamZ]

The router is a verizon FIOS router
The MAC OS versoin is OS X 10.5.6
The Mac office version is Wor for MAC 2004 version11.5.0
The Printer is a Dell AIO 911
I think the PC version of office is XP Office for small business probably also 2004

Also FWIW the Mac works fine on the wireless and accesses the internet well

 

[SkyHog]

Frustraion!!! I have a desktop PC my daughter has a mac laptop Macbook I think. We got her the microsoft office disc for mac so now she can type in word. BUT when she tries to print through wireless to our dell printer attached to our desktop pc it nothing happens.

We click print on the Mac in word and we select dell printer and this horizontal blue and white barberpole appears the acts as if its sending the document to the printer but nothing happens on the other end. I know squat about Macs and only a little bit of squat about PCs.

To make matters worse I had her just email me the word doc so I could print it from the desk top. I got the email and file then the computer said I needed my small office XP disc to install a converter so I put the disc in I suppose the converter installed ( it said it was) but when I open the file I get some funky stuff lots of little boxes and some weird characters.

Any thoughts on either of these subjects?

Just out of curiosity, was the file extension .docx? If it was, have her save it as a Word 97/2003 document instead. That will allow you to print it at least until you find the answer.

 

[mikea]

You can print to a PDF on the Mac (there's a box for that right on the print dialog), sneakernet it or drop the .PDF on to the PC and print it there.

 

[flyingcheesehead]

Adam,

How is the printer connected to the WiFi? Is it connected directly to the router, or is it connected to the PC?

Also, when you go to Print in the Mac, you'll see a printer name. Does it have a bunch of other characters after it? For example, "OfficeJet 6300 Series [4C2F76]" or is it just the name of the printer?

Mike's solution will work for now too - Anything can read a PDF. On the Mac, choose Print and in the lower left hand corner click on "PDF" and it will "print" to a PDF file which should be easily readable by the PC.

 

[RJM62]

Will the Mac print anything (that is, something not generated by Office) to the Dell printer?

If not, then it's a networking / driver problem, not an Office problem.

-Rich