I recently tried to upgrade my MacBook to Mountain Lion and without going into the gory details, that caused some kind of hard drive crash and I had to have my hard drive reformatted, etc. Now I am back to OS X 10.6.8 and Safari 5.1.7 but since the reformatting (and installing Adobe v. 11 something) I can't print from Safari without downloading the file. My default .pdf reader is preview. Prior to this Mountain Lion fiasco, anything would print from any application when ever I wanted to which ever of three printers I desired.

If all else fails, reset the printing system.

Edit: Oops! Hi, and welcome to FineTunedMac.

Are there any troubleshooting steps you've taken that you can tell us about and maybe narrow down the possibilities?

In particular, have you logged in to a test account to see whether your issue follows you across account lines?

Also, is your problem limited to Safari, or do you run into it in other browsers too?

I thought of another possibility. You said that you had installed "Adobe v.11 something". I assume that that's Adobe Reader 11.

The Adobe installer has a nasty habit of switching the default PDF viewer to Adobe Reader, and without asking you. The only way to reverse that, as far as I have discovered, is by the following method:

1. Quit Safari.
2. Go to /Library/Internet Plug-Ins.
3. See if you have AdobePDFViewer.plugin and/or AdobePDFViewerNPAPI.plugin. If so, move them to the Disabled Plug-Ins folder that is inside /Library/Internet Plug-Ins. (If you don't have that folder, create one).
4. Relaunch Safari and see if the problem is solved.

Thanks for your responses. I really need to figure this out. I print out labels for a home business, and the on line label program needs to be able to print from pdf directly from the internet or it adds a whole extra step to my process.

I tried the test account thing, same problem. I checked for internet plug ins from Adobe, there are no plug ins from any program. I have set my default pdf reader to be Preview. And I reset the Printing stuff

On the online label design program that I use, it says something about Google Chrome causing a problem with printing. How do I find out what type of google I am using?

Should I un-install Adobe? How do I do that?

I FIGURED IT OUT!!!!

It WAS the plug-ins!! I must have been looking in the wrong Library folder, I think it was the one for the desk top, not the one on the hard drive.

Yay!!!

Thanks for the support.

> On the online label design program that I use, it says something about Google Chrome causing a problem with printing. How do I find out what type of google I am using?

It's academic...Google Chrome is a browser.

I'm happy that you solved this. FYI, both Libraries are on the hard drive. (Actually, there is a third Library in /System). Ignoring the System Library, the one that I originally suggested is the Library that is at the root level (that is, not inside another folder) of the hard drive. This Library contains files that pertain to all users of the computer. The path to it is written /Library.

The other Library is inside your home folder. The path can be written /Users/yourname/Library. It is usually abbreviated ~/Library, where ~ stands for /Users/yourname. This Library contains files that only apply to your account, not to other users of the computer.

When you installed Adobe Reader, you probably had the option of installing it either for all users or for your account only. Depending on which option you chose, those plugins appeared in either /Library or ~/Library.

I apologize if you already knew this, but I thought it best to write an explanation in case you didn't. (It might come in handy some day!) BTW, /System/Library should be off limits. Unless you're an expert, NEVER MESS WITH IT.

I second Artie's BIG WELCOME to FTM.

Expanding on Jon's excellent explanation of where things are, here's how they work:

Had your plug-ins been located in ~/Library you'd have been able to print when you logged in to another account, because they'd have affected your log-in account only, whereas the fact that you could not print from your other account told us that whatever was causing your problem was something that affected all accounts...perhaps something in /Library (where you ultimately found your plug-ins).

Happy to hear that you've gotten things sorted out.