Canon Pixma iP8500 not working with Mavericks

[Bush Girl]

After lots of hunting online I discovered that Apple does not offer up the drivers for this printer and Canon have chosen not to supply them anymore as this printer is "so old". It is indeed 7 years old but until I upgraded to Mavericks was working perfectly well on my old iMac, several laptops and a brand new Windows 8 PC.

Upon advice on the Apple Support forum I installed Gutenprint 5.2.9 and ta-da, my printer is now recognised by Mavericks. HOWEVER, all the layouts are messed up; the margin starts far too far over on the left hand side, so much of the type is missed off on the right. It also pauses during printing, sometimes for 20 mins or so before printing a bit more and won't release the paper in between times. I have only tried printing from Word & Pages so far, and certainly haven't dared try a photo, as simple documents are so badly wrong.

Does anyone have any suggestions for how I might deal with this? I'm afraid I'm shockingly badly un-technical hence I'm here asking for advice as I'm rubbish at this!


Many thanks.

 

[MCAsan]

If Canon has pulled support, that is a strong indicator to plan a replacement. Consider donating the printer to Good Will for a tax credit and go for a new printer.

 

[a.coward]

Your can try PrintFab. However, this isn't a cheap solution at almost 50 Euros, so you'd almost be better off buying a new printer. They do have a 30 day trial.

 

[Bush Girl]

I've just downloaded a trial version of PrintFab, having un-installed the scary Gutenprint, and PrintFab has my printer working perfectly with very good colour reproduction. I'll give a go and see how it works out for me - as my printer cost about $600SG I really don't want to trash it when it works perfectly.

Thanks so much for sending me in this direction, a.coward, I think you've just saved my sanity!