I appreciate all of the tech help I have recieved on this board. I'm the civil servant with the childbirth animation project. Another part of my job is promotional brochures for our department. We are a test shop for Windows 2000, and I was having major problems printing with Pagemaker 6.5. As many of you know, Adobe is not supporting PM6.5 for 2k. I went back to 98 and have had no problems since. As far as I am concerned the problem is solved. However, I missed the last departmental meeting due to a surgical procedure, and have been told by another colleage that concerns were expressed in that "the printing problems were probably caused by those 3-d programs." It was apparently agreed that I should "load one, then wait a week. .." I have printed out posts from the Adobe PageMaker forum documenting the Windows 2k/Pagemaker problems, but here's my question: Out of respect for my colleages concerns, has anyone ever had ANY problems printing from ANY OTHER programs on a Pentium III running '98 with Poser 4, Bryce or Rhino loaded on their machines? Your experience and professional opinions will be most appreciated. Although it is a bit off topic, these same concerns have been voiced about my having my Macromedia Flash, Dreamweaver and Fireworks for another project loaded as well. I would like to take your reponses to our next departmental meeting. Your professional opinions will be most appreciated. Thank you, Hypatia

I have most f the programs you mention and a dual operating system and can honestly say it has never affected my printing maybe its your print driver software?

From the sounds of it, it's Win2K. My day job is in IT support and we're still testing Win2K on some machines....finding all sorts of odd bugs/problems with software/hardware used in our company when installed on a Win2K machine. The problems with Win2K could run from driver support to software compatibility...and then some! If the problem went away with going back to Win98, I agree with you, problem solved. I dread the day when my boss tells me we're gonna switch to Win2K.

I've been running win2k as well as win98. I think on some of the adobe programs you will have to make sure you have a postscript driver installed for pagemaker even if you don't have a postscript printer. I know that Acrobat ran fine on my win98 machine, but I needed to download and install a postscript driver for my win2k machine. You might try that. I've got a ton of 3D software on this and my other systems and have yet to have a problem with printing. Also, have you thought about setting up your pagemaker program, then go in as a different user and set up your 3D software. That may take care of the problem altogether. Good luck with it, Marque

I seriously doubt it would be caused by a 3d program, they mostly use standard windows fonts if they use them at all. Adobe Software, esp. PM, is more likely a problem, as it can use postscript fonts (and the notoriously buggy on windows ATM -adobe type manager-), more likely to cause trouble. As far as system software, 3D software generally uses Direct3d or OpenGL, neither of which has anything to do with printing. FWIW, I have Max, World Construction Set, Poser, PS6, Illustrator, Bryce, on my Wn2k machine, connected to an NT4 Server Domain (with other NT4/Win2k/MacOS9/X machines), and print to an HP Laser Writer and Apple Laser writer with no trouble. By the way, what is the point of "loading one, then waiting a week?" If a program is going to cause a network printing problem, I can't think of any reason it would take a week to cause it (Standard trouble shooting would be load the program, print from it, see if printing is still working normally, then try another program;-). Good luck!

I greatly appreciate your replies. I feel well prepared for the next time this issue is brought up, and due to your tactful eloquence, I can hopefully dispense with issues and get back to work. I've been working on these projects at home on my own time. Freelancing was easier in some ways, but I like the more regular cash flow.