Help me help my 80-year old Dad empty the print-que on a Power-Mac...

[Rooster_Ties]

Help!! My father is trying to clear out the print-que on his Power-Mac, circa 2001/2002. (Don't know what the OS is, but probably whatever was "current" about 3-4 years ago.)

I haven't used a Mac in years and YEARS (well over 10 years ago), and my Dad doesn't know very much more than how to turn it on, open the word processor, type, and how to print.

He ran out of colored ink recently (he never prints in color, so that couldn't have been the problem - though it did turn out to be the problem after all), and in the process of me troubleshooting it remotely over the phone - he tried to print out his document 5 or 10 times, or more.

Now the printer-que is full with 5-10 unprinted jobs, and needs to be cleared out -- and I can't for the life of me figure out where to do go to that. (He's in St. Louis, I'm in Kansas City -- and nothing he describes over the phone leads to the printer-que control panel, or whatever it's called on a Mac.)

I'm been searching on-line Mac-FAQs for 20 minutes, and can't find anything. Anybody got a link to a FAQ, or a solution?? (Or free long-distance, and wanna call him and talk him through it tonight??) Only half-kidding about that last suggestion. Or could you talk me through talking him through it, like if we did the live-chat thing (you "talking" to me via the new Big-O chat function --- since he doesn't have internet access anymore, since my mom passed away a couple years ago).

Many, many, MANY thanks in advance for any advice anyone can offer. Could solve this in a heartbeat on a Windows machine, but I'm stumped on damn Macs. I know, they're (supposed to be) easy - but only if you know how to use them.

Edited December 12, 2005 by Rooster_Ties

[Jim Alfredson]

Did he try turning off the printer and the computer?

[Rooster_Ties]

Did he try turning off the printer and the computer?

Oh yeah, several times. Printer's been off and on 5 times or more, and the computer's been off and on as many or more times.

Printer-que still full with unprinted docs.

[Jim Alfredson]

That's pretty stupid. Why would Mac do that?

[Rooster_Ties]

Not sure the problem is unique to macs. I seem to think that I've seen full-print ques on PC's before, even after being powered off and back on.

Or maybe I'm remember my old Mac days, back in college (circa '87-'91, and about two years more after that).

Far as I know, I've never had it happen on my own machine (a Dell PC, running under Win-ME).

[Rooster_Ties]

By the way, I a couple days ago I did get far enough along to somehow bring up the properties of his printer (or some sort of "printer status" utility program). But based on my dad's description over the phone - there never was a list of print jobs, nor any kind of menu option related to print jobs or the printer que. The printer utility he brought up had four options (icons I think, or buttons, that each ran a different utility -- to check for things like ink levels (one option), a clogged print-head (another option), and two more options I think (print alignment was one of them, probably).

Anyway, I never could find how to bring up the print que --- which was actually was my first thought when he first called me. I didn't think he was out of ink either, and I thought his print que got stopped by accident. Turned out to be the ink after all (when you print black, it prints just a little bit of color too -- to keep the print nozzles clear), so he really did run out of color ink, even though he never printed in color.

But before we figured that out, I thought his print-que had gotten stopped by accident.

Never could find the print que menu option or utility, though --- and then we discovered the ink issue.

[Christiern]

If it's an older Mac, your father needs to find PrintMonitor (in the Applications menu), bring it up, and select the unwanted files, then hit delete.

Note to Jim: It's really not so stupid. There have been many occasions when I took advantage of this feature. The PrintMonitor is only found in old OS versions. With OS X, it became an application called Print Center and it is particularly handy when one has more than one printer hooked up--as I do.

Edited December 12, 2005 by Christiern

[Rooster_Ties]

Where would the "Applications" menu be?? Doesn't appear to be in any of the pull-down menues on the machine when he has -- damn what was that called on the mac. Anyway, in any of the menues when the desktop is visible.

Got him on the phone as I'm typing this.

Edited December 12, 2005 by Rooster_Ties

[Jim Alfredson]

If it's an older Mac, your father needs to find PrintMonitor (in the Applications menu), bring it up, and select the unwanted files, then hit delete.

Note to Jim: It's really not so stupid. There have been many occasions when I took advantage of this feature. The PrintMonitor is only found in old OS versions. With OS X, it became an application called Print Center and it is particularly handy when one has more than one printer hooked up--as I do.

I don't know... not clearing the queue when the machine is OFF seems kinda dumb to me. Is it really hard to hit "print" again once the machine boots up if there was a problem?

[Free For All]

I'd say have him call one of those house-call computer services like Computer Geeks.

[Jim Alfredson]

Where would the "Applications" menu be?? Doesn't appear to be in any of the pull-down menues on the machine when he has -- damn what was that called on the mac. Anyway, in any of the menues when the desktop is visible.

Got him on the phone as I'm typing this.

It's sometimes in the pull down menu that's available when you click on the apple logo in the upper left (if I remember correctly). You should also be able to get there via the main harddrive.

[Christiern]

Jim remembers correctly, it's under the old (rainbow) Apple logo.

[7/4]

But I thought Macs are so easy to use?

[Rooster_Ties]

UPDATE

Well, my dad needed to really print some stuff (mailing labels for Xmas stuff), so he bit the bullet and let the print que print everything -- just to get it cleared out.

I think it printed about 10 or 20 pages of stuff, and now he's back in business.

Appreciate all the help, even if it turned out to be for naught.

[Rooster_Ties]

But I thought Macs are so easy to use?

No kidding. I think my Mom's Power Mac was/is running the more recent Max OS (the new one, circa 2000-2002), that really changed the user-interface from the older OS (which I still kinda knew). Never could find how to do certain things under the new OS, and pretty much hated it every time I went back home and tried to use it for something.

For instance, without any kind of secondary mouse button -- there never was any way I could find to apply (cause) a context-based action to occur, like you would on a PC. In other words, I could often find the object I wanted to manipulate (selected text, icon, file), but then once selected -- there was never any way to bring up the list of actions that were approprate to apply within the context of having that kind of object selected.

SO, I was forever digging through menues to try to find what it was I wanted to do.

I'm sure the new Mac OS is great if you know what you're doing. But for people that only use PC's, it is/was a royal pain in the ass. -_-

[Christiern]

I'm sure the new Mac OS is great if you know what you're doing. But for people that only use PC's, it is/was a royal pain in the ass. -_-

That's the real problem. The Mac OS is in many ways way ahead of Windows, so people who are used to the latter have a problem with the former. Action that requires several steps in the Windows environments are often a single click or drag on a Mac. I used to give instructions on the use of Macs to employees of companies that had made the switch from PC. The problem was often that the former PC users were looking to do complex maneuvers and simply couldn't imagine that anything was as easy as the Mac OS had made it.

Today's Windows has incorporated many of the Mac innovations, but Apple still keeps ahead, and only very rarely does an idea flow the other way.

Edited December 12, 2005 by Christiern