I really appreciate your feedback. I bought this printer from a yard sale. But it was in really good shape. Can I find the driver online?

Sorry to sound so dumb but I I'm not tech savvy. My computer skills are very limited.

See if the printer will do a self- test print,

1. Load plain white paper into the input tray.

2. Press and hold the Cancel button and then press the Start Copy Color button

   See if the printer prints a self-test report.

If you've tried two computers and the result is the same, then it's not likely a driver issue. As Zep suggested, try to print a self test page from the printer itself. If that doesn't work, it's time for a new printer.

Here's the deal. I've continued to tinker with my printer in an attempt to have it start printing again. One thing I suddenly realized was that I had not tried to print out photos. Guess what? I can print out jpeg photos!

But I cannot seem to print out Excel or Word documents.

What does this mean?

Printing a picture is much different than printing text. When you print a picture, each dot (pixel) has a location and color information. The jpeg format has been standardized for generic printers and you printer is able to print each dot. If the photo prints correctly with proper color and no missing lines, etc, this is good news because it means that certain parts of your printer is working, namely the print head and ink supply, and the servo motors that moves the head and advances the paper. It also says that communications between the printer and computer is working. All you are missing is the ability print a character when an ascii code is sent to the printer. Way, way back in desktop computer history, the letters of the alphabet and special characters were assigned numbers called ASCII code. (Look this up on the internet with google to read about it.) When a computer wanted a printer print the letter A, it would tell the printer to go into its print mode and print ascii 65. The printer had to know how to form a dot pattern for the letter A. Most printers had built-in maps of al the ascii characters. This was fine except that early printers had only one fonts set. (A font is the design of the letter characters, and there are many different sets., and each set usually has an italics form as well.

There are 2 ways one might print different fonts: Build the font sets into the printer or send the printer a mapping of dots to make a line of print. Some printers have one or more sets (native) of fonts built-in, but can also print a bit map of dots sent by the computer. This is where the print driver comes in. Its a piece of software that lives in the computer's software library. It controls all printing done by the printer. it takes on the job of making and sending bit mappings or ASCII characters to the printer. These days, a print driver is required to make the printer work. The Window's programs contains drivers for many printers, but if it does not have one for a printer connected to it, that driver needs to be installed for best results. You have a MAC computer and operating system. I am not familiar with the MAC, but I think it also contains many printer drivers.

Try re-installing your printer. In your computer find your printer control panel (In Windows, the printer panel can be found in the "Control Panel".) Open the printer panel and see if your printer is installed. If not, install it. If it shows, but is not selected as the default device, select it. If it is there and selected, unselect it and check ok or whatever your system requires. Close the printer panel. Now, re-open the printer panel and select it as default, press ok, and close the panel.

If the printer does not work after re-installing, it might be time for a new printer. Printers are not expensive. The companies practically give them away at cost because they will make plenty of money selling ink cartridges. That's where the profit is.

ON MORE THING:

You said there was no paper jam, but there might be something inside that you have not seen. Most HP printers have access to their internals from a panel on the back of the printer. Open that up and take a look.

Go to the HP web site and look up your printer. You may find a manual for it. Download a copy. You may not be able to print out the pages you want (until you get a working printer), but you can display these on your screen and that may be helpful for finding you way around your printer.