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I support a few macs for our staff and one of the macs in question starting having an issue where when the job would reach the printer instead of the job printing out, a bunch of jumbled code would print out instead. This has happened on multiple printers even after removing all current printers and resetting the printing system on the OS and adding the printers again fresh. I haven't been able to find anything about an issue like this on the net yet and was hoping for a solution short of wiping and re-imaging the HDD.

Both Word 2011 and webpages viewed from Safari were sent as test print jobs. The OS is 10.9.5 and both printers are Ricoh models, though different ones. I specifically downloaded the correct drivers and both were setup via LDP and IP address.

I have tried physically deleting all printer drivers from the library folder and was prompted to download and reinstall the printer drivers as I setup the printers again to test but the same issue happened again.

Here is an example of what happens.

A simple word 2011 document with only the words: test print

returns this

%!PS-Adobe-3.0

%APL_DSC_Encoding: UTF8

%APLProducer: (Version 10.9.5 (Build 13f109

14 blank pages

14 dict begin/FontName /KUFZPG+Cambria def

/PaintType 0 def

then a bunch of dup callouts and multi-line string of alphanumeric characters and the closing brackets on those opening tags.

/Encoding 256 array 0 1 255[index exch/ .notdef put}for

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  • need more info.....mac, osx, printer type application used for printing....
    – Ruskes
    Jul 20, 2015 at 15:04
  • @Buscar웃SD added.
    – Joshua Aslan Smith
    Jul 20, 2015 at 15:09
  • Thank you, it looks like the common thing is the Safari ! (print from Safari)
    – Ruskes
    Jul 20, 2015 at 15:46
  • check this out support.apple.com/kb/PH18606?locale=en_US&viewlocale=en_US also check for add ons and disable them for now.
    – Ruskes
    Jul 20, 2015 at 16:12
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    Sounds like the printer is printing out the binary data represented as ASCII characters. It is a common failure mode of Postscript printers. A couple of things are likely, an option got checked that should not have or the printer driver is damaged. I'd try uninstalling the driver first and reinstalling. Failing that dig into the CUPS interface for settings that maybe should not be on. You will have to turn CUPS on in a terminal. A quick Google will find you the info...
    – Steve Chambers
    Jul 20, 2015 at 20:23

1 Answer 1

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That 'weird code' is actually PostScript, and is the raw data of the print job.

If this is a large network printer, these models very often have different LPD queues to which you can send the job. These can define the expected input data. (E.g. my HP 5200 has "RAW", "AUTO", "BINPS", and "TEXT" as LPD queues.) Check the manual of the printer, and see what print queues are offered, and make sure you configure the 'Printer' in MacOS to send to a particular queue.

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