Printer won't print MS apps...

[Guest]

My mother-in-law's computer won't print from word, wordpad, works, or
notepad. It will print from pcture and fax viewer, OE, and IE. It is an old
HP 842c connected to parralel port (lpt-1). I have epp+ecp set in bios. I
have tried un/re-installing printer and drivers. Drivers from HP and
included with XP. All the printer does is spit out a blank sheet of paper.
Went through troubleshooter and printer will not print from command prompt
either. Could find no "online" option under properties of the printer. I've
just about exhausted all my options here. Any ideas?
Specs: WinXPpro-sp2, office 2003 pro, works 2000 ver.5, HP deskjet 842c

 

[Guest]

Help???

 

[Guest]

Your mil's HP842c printer only supports the ECP (Enhanced Capability Port)
Protocol, not EPP (Enhanced Parallel Port). Check for the latest drivers from
HP, even the ones for Win2K should work if none are listed for XP.

 

[Guest]

BIOS is set to epp + ecp...that should work, right? Also have tried the
latest (2002) drivers from HP. No go. This is really weird as it will print
from IE or OE, just not the "document" programs like word etc. I think I'll
take my USB printer over there this weekend and see if that works.

 

[Guest]

OK. Went back to bios and selected ecp. There was a "mode" selection
available also. Default mode setting was 3. Other choice was 1. Tried
both. Still no good. Tried newest driver I could find at driverguide.com.
(2004) Still no good. This printer, hooked up to the parallel port just
will NOT print word documents. In an interesting aside, I brought my Epson
USB printer over and installed it. It works fine. I hate to think my mil
has to buy a new printer because of this. Seems a little ridiculous to have
to buy a new piece of hardware due to incompatability with certain MS apps.
Any other ideas?

 

[Guest]

YEAH! I finally fixed it. Now everything prints...on her new Canon USB
printer. If it's any consolation, nobody at MS or other places I asked for
help could figure this one out either.