Home Forums Peripherals & Multimedia Peripherals PDF printing problem with Snow Leopard

I have, just two days ago (12/13/09), upgraded to Snow Leopard 10.6.2 from Leopard. I have a Canon PIXMA MP500 (printer/scanner/copier) and after the Snow Leopard upgrade, I went to the Canon website and downloaded the latest driver and also the MP Navigator which is needed for scanning.

All seemed fine after the OS and printer driver/scanner upgrade except for the fact that I can no longer print PDFs. When trying to print PDFs, I get the error message:

Error: Unable to open raster stream-: No such file or directory.

I spent hours searching for a solution to this problem, and all I could find was:

• make sure you have the latest driver for the printer (which I have)
• open the PDF in Preview and print from Preview
• print the PDF as an image

I normally use Adobe Acrobat Pro 8.1.7 for PDFs, but I also downloaded the Acrobat Reader 9.2.0 and I got the same error message with Reader.

Printing from Preview and printing as an image do work, but if there is a way to fix this so that I could just do a "command-P" to print as I have done for years in previous OSs, that would be peachy.

I went to the Adobe website and searched the support site and could not find anything. I also learned that a stand-alone Acrobat Pro 9 does not exist and that one must purchase the entire Creative Suite just to get Acrobat Pro 9. (And since I was unable to print PDFs using just the Reader 9, I'm not optimistic that I could print from Acrobat Pro 9, either.)

Any ideas?

You might want to try repairing permissions in Disk Utility.
Also when I updated to Snow Leopard, Software Update gave me the latest drivers for my Canon Pixma ip4200. I didn't have to download from the site

Ditto for my IP5000, and I haven't experienced any problems.

ryck

Thank you for your replies. I should have mentioned that I ran Disk Utility to repair permissions before and after upgrading to Snow Leopard and ran it again after downloading the printer drivers.

The driver from Software Update is a Gutenprint driver and it does enable me to print a PDF, but I am not able to do duplex printing which is a necessary feature for me. Other features available in the "real" Canon driver are also absent from the Gutenprint driver.

My multifunction printer is several years old, so perhaps that is the issue. I have sent an email message to Canon, but have not yet received a response.

Thanks again for your replies. It is interesting to know that you have not had this problem.

I am reluctant to suggest this and you probably already have done it anyway. What happens if you go into System Preferences, Print and Fax and delete or unselect the printer, restart and select it again. I don't like to suggest things that I am unsure of the outcome and then find out you have no printing ability at all.
Anyway keep us posted on what Canon says.

Hello MarkG,

Thanks for your suggestion. I deleted the MP500 printer in the Print and Fax preferences and then restarted. After the restart, the printer automatically appeared in the list, which is odd. One would think that if it is deleted, one would have to manually add it again. At any rate, I tried printing a PDF and again, I got the same error message: Unable to open raster stream...

I did get a reply from Canon. They had me verify that I am, indeed, using the new drivers for 10.6 (Snow Leopard) and then wrote:

Thank you for your response.
The files have been tested and are compatible with 10.6 and higher OSX
(Snow Leopard).

If you continue to experience issues, we recommend contacting Adobe.

Technical support is available by dialing 800-828-4040 Monday through
Friday from 10:00 am to 10:00pm Eastern Time.

Thank you for choosing Canon.

So, there is no solution other than to print from Preview or print PDFs as images (which takes longer to print).

Thanks again for your suggestion.

What is odd about this is that my Pixma ip4200 uses the same print drivers as your unit (iP4200 CUPS Printer Driver Ver. 10.26.0.0 (Mac OS X 10.5/10.6)) and I have no problems.

Are you using a postscript print engine to generate the print files? Or are you using the PDF selection from the Printer window?

Thank you all for trying to help with this baffling issue.

In answer to your question, Sturner: I'm not sure I understand your questions. Within either Adobe Acrobat Pro 8.1.7 or in Acrobat Reader 9.2.0, I have tried to print either by clicking on a printer icon or by doing "command + P."

I am not trying to generate a PDF file (i.e., using the postscript printer); I am just trying to print to my Canon MP500 printer.

My husband has a Macbook Pro running Snow Leopard 10.6.2. The curious thing is that he can print PDFs just fine using both Acrobat Pro 8.1.7 and also Acrobat Reader 9.2.0. So, same set-up, same applications, same printer and he is able to print, but I am unable to print using my iMac. Very frustrating!

I have also been on the phone with Apple for most of the afternoon. Two tech support people have been very helpful in trying to find a solution to this head-scratcher. The second Apple tech person even tried calling Adobe, but the Adobe person would not provide tech support unless/until I upgrade to Acrobat Pro 9 (they will not provide support for the free Reader 9.2.0). My feeling is that if I cannot print from the free Reader application, then it stands to reason that I would not be able to print from the expensive Pro version, so why shell out the shekels?

At any rate, it seems to me that if my husband can print PDFs from his laptop with the same set-up, then there must be something on my iMac that is conflicting. In other words, it doesn't seem that it would be an Adobe problem or a problem with the Canon printer driver.

Have you tried logging in to a test user account on your iMac to see if your issue follows you from one account to another?

Knowing this will enable us to narrow down the possibilities.

And if this works, then you should look into this Print-therepy. Alternatively you could delete all your printers and reinstall them. Or transfer you files to a new user.

Print Therapy has not yet been updated for Snow Leopard. Version 6.0.7 is the latest one and is Leopard-only.

I also learned that a stand-alone Acrobat Pro 9 does not exist

That's very surprising. I know a lot of people that use acrobat pro (older versions) and have no use for the rest of creative suite.

Several of them use it because their work requires them to receive PDFs, fill them out inline, and email them back. If you try that stunt with Word, it has a nasty habit of ~tripling the size of the file. (and often exceeds attachment limits, last one I ran into was a 13mb source, and the saved version breaching 50mb!)

Remembering back, the PDF Word created was actually only (!) around 42mb, but attachments must be uuencoded (transparently) and that's what was breaking the 50mb email size limit there.

artie505:

Yes, with the help of the Apple tech person, I created a test user account and then tried to print a PDF and I still got the same error message.

Hello again, I should have added in my previous email about testing printing with a new "Test" user account that I also tried deleting all of the printers and then reinstalled the Canon MP500 printer.

I also reinstalled Snow Leopard from the DVD installer and brought my OS back down to 10.6.0 to see if there might be an issue with 10.6.2. Unfortunately, I could not print under 10.6.0, either.

Given that all of our tests failed, the Apple tech's opinion is that this is an Adobe issue and not a conflict with anything on my hard drive or a printer hardware problem. <sigh>

I could very well be mistaken, then. I just didn't find a Mac stand-alone Acrobat Pro 9 on the Adobe website.

At any rate, I won't be purchasing it until I can get this printing problem resolved. Again, if I am unable to print PDFs using Acrobat Reader 9.2, I seriously doubt that I would be able to print using Acrobat Pro 9.

Concerning Acrobat Pro 9 you definitely are mistaken. I recently bought it as a standalone on Amazon. But I agree that it most probably would not help. Previously, under Tiger, I had some stubborn pdf files that would stop on one page with an HP LaserJet and only "print as image" did help. After Leopard and Snow Leopard, I stopped getting this behavior. However, what I have seen with HP is that printers were thinking too long before the start. So, I downloaded the Gutenprint drivers and all became well and fast. I do have Pixma ip4200 at home and it did not need to replace the drivers. But, since things may go wrong with printer drivers, I suggest you download Gutenprint from here:

http://support.apple.com/downloads/Gutenprint_Printer_Drivers_for_Mac_OS_X_v10_6

Then go to Print and Fax in the System Preferences, delete your current printer, then click on add printer and select your model, then the driver; make sure it is Gutenprint. Then try it. Hope it works.

Hmmm... "Tis a puzzlement."

I Googled a bit to see if anything came up, and everything seems to point towards drivers.

On a lark, though, have you tried messing with your printer, itself, i.e. turning it on/off, unplugging it from its USB port and plugging it back in to the same or another port, maybe even swapping out your cable?

My husband uses the same drivers on his Macbook Pro and is able to print PDFs without a problem.



Oh yes. I've tried all that. Thanks, though!