This article discusses potential difficulties stemming from not having made a printer selection in the Chooser, affecting iMacs and other Macintosh computers. There are a few ways this scenario can occur:

1. You skip the Mac OS Setup Assistant at startup.

2. When going through the Mac OS Setup Assistant, once it gets to the section on selecting a printer, if "Network" is chosen and there is no printer on the network, the Assistant will allow you to continue, but no printer will be chosen.

3. If desktop printing has been turned off, resetting the PRAM will cause the Mac to forget it's printer selection.

Many programs act under the assumption that a printer has been selected in the Chooser, and if that assumption turns out to be incorrect, unpredictable events can occur.

Here are a few things that you might see if a printer has not been selected in the Chooser:

-When trying to fax holding the command-option key shortcut, you will get a message that states that no printer is selected in the Chooser and you will not be able to fax.
-Programs my quit or crash with type 1 or 11 errors.
-Lock ups may occur.

If you have a printer connected to your Macintosh, Apple recommends that you be sure to set it up in your Chooser to avoid these potential issues.


Workarounds for Mac users who do not have a printer:

iMac Customers:
iMac users who do not have any USB-compatible printer drivers installed (none of Apple's serial printer drivers, such as ImageWriter or StyleWriter, are USB-compatible), and also lack a network printer, are uniquely affected by this, because there are then no printers left in the Chooser to select.

In that event, users are advised to select the "FaxPrint" driver (found in the Chooser) instead.

Note: A desktop printer icon will not be created for the "FaxPrint" driver. All print commands invoke the send fax window instead of a standard "Print" window.

All Other Mac Customers:
One workaround is to simply select any serial printer (like any of the StyleWriters) in the Chooser. From there, it asks you to make a selection on whether it is connected to the printer or modem port. If you are not currently using your printer port (for something like a LocalTalk network) then choose your printer port. If your printer port is in use, then select the modem port. If you are also using your modem port (with a modem, for example), then the workaround is a little more difficult.

In this scenario, check the Chooser to see if you modem software installed a fax driver in the Chooser - if so, that is probably the easiest solution. If not, you must use the Desktop Printer Utility to create either a fake desktop printer or a translator of some kind and then select that.