What's happening to my Macbook?

[polevault139]

I got a Macbook just before I came to college and it's been working great except for a few things that I don't think are really hardware related.

Microsoft Office 2004 won't print and Excel won't open unless I open an existing file. Even then it won't copy/paste or anything worthwhile.

There are printing problems all around even in preview and pretty much any program where you can print.

The printer is a HP C4280 and I have reinstalled the drivers and I get the same problem.

I have also reinstalled Microsoft Office and the same problems are still occurring. I am taking the computer to the ITS center tomorrow to see if they can diagnose the problem but I wanted to see if anyone here has any ideas.

 

[JasonMac]

Do an "archive and re-install"

 

[geofflilley]

Probably a preferences file...

I would try a couple of things...

1. This first observation is not my own personal wisdom, but that of Microsoft Office Mac MVP John McGimpsey: Re-installing Office rarely solves anything.
2. Doing an archive and install wouldn't change much; if it's ONLY office apps that won't print, then an A&I wouldn't have any effect, unless you do it not preserving user and network settings. I suspect the consequences of doing that would be far too drastic to justify the solution.
3. Try creating a second user, and create an XL file in that new user. If it works, you probably have a preferences issue. If I'm right about that, go to your Home folder, Library, Preferences, and trash com.microsoft.excel.plist. If that doesn't help, try trashing com.microsoft.excel.prefs.plist; most of the preferences specific to MS apps are in the ~/Library/Preferences/Microsoft folder.

That's my experience, anyway. HTH.