Okay, the thread title is a bit misleading. I dont need tech support. Mom needs tech support. I am the most reliable person in the family, so the task falls on me. The problem is I dont actually know a ton about computers. I dont use a printer on even a monthly basis. I dont know much about microsoft excel. I dont know why people keep sending mom read-only format documents or how to fix that, etc, etc, etc. And being unable to actually help her makes me feel like I have no worth. I am very close to sacrificing my blood to the computer gods in an attempt to make things work. Who here might or might not be able to help me help her, and feel like my existence is justified?
When I say I'm a techie I mean I know some things and how to google other things. So, I'm a techie. What's up?
Okay, today's issue- mom needs to print something. Our printer (a Brother if that matters) is turned on, and the wifi symbol on its little screen is on, but mom's computer says it is offline. We tried checking the settings but as soon as it said it wanted to install new software on mom's computer, she got mad and said no and we gave up. Any suggestions?
Check the drivers. Make sure they are up to date. You should be able to do that via aforementioned settings menu, and the mentioned new software is probably those drivers. You can also track down the printer in device manager (windows key + r, type devmgmt.msc), right click, and hit update device software, or whatever it says in bold black.
You might be without a printer haha. Depending on your OS, the drivers may have been dropped off and need to be reinstalled. (Windows 10 is the biggest culprit in this, but other operating systems do it all the time, too.) You can try popping in the CD that should have come with the printer and re-installing them that way, but if they have had an essential update since the CD was made, they may not work or be compatible anymore.
Well if the printer works it's worth the... uhm, sacrifice? I don't see why she's not happy tbh... if there's a space issue on the computer drivers won't affect that as they usually uninstall the older versions of themselves... but I digress that's not the topic in question here haha.
I need to crop/edit a PDF on windows 7. What do I do? We have microsoft publisher, but I literally don't know what that is.
Publisher is for home publishing - flyers to print, calendars etc. PDFs are designed to encapsulate all the data in it including fonts, which is why they're almost universally readable but not easy to edit. Large changes to a PDF will most likely require a program able to open up EPS files - illustrator or Inkscape (which is free) will do this, since you can grab any element and manipulate it. If you need to change text then it's easier to open it in a document editor like Word, but this will probably futz the layout.
The easiest way to do that would probably be to open PDF, screenshot relevant part, crop as necessary in graphics editor of choice.
