Why have my Macbook and my printer broken up?

September 30, 2009 10:04 PM

why won't my macbook and my hp officejet printer talk anymore? Wirelessly, I mean. What can I do?

It's an OfficeJet J6480 and I miss the way I could just hit print...and the printing would happen. Help?

posted by flowerofhighrank to computers & internet (4 comments total)

You're a bit sparse on details. Is the printer still available in System Preferences->Print and Fax?

If it is, is it set to be the default printer there? If so, do you get any error messages when printing?

If not, can you add it with the plus-button and the add-printer wizard?
posted by DreamerFi at 2:34 AM on October 1

Have you installed Mac Os 10.6? That's changed the way HP printers integrate with the OS, but mostly for scanning / faxing and the like. Shouldn't change printing, I wouldn't have thought...
posted by momentofmagnus at 7:19 AM on October 1

Did you upgrade to Snow Leopard recently? Have you tried downloading an updated driver from the hp website? I had a similar problem with a different model, but it worked after I installed the updated print driver. (Further instructions.)
posted by cobwebberies at 7:25 AM on October 1

Seconding the question about Snow Leopard. According to this page, your printer is supported is supported in 10.6 and there should be new drivers available via Apple Software Update.

Oh, and make sure you aren't connected to your network via Ethernet when you try to print wirelessly. That doesn't work. My daughter just learned this lesson at school, trying to print from her MacBook to her HP wireless printer.
posted by Thorzdad at 7:39 AM on October 1