Before you freak out, it’s not a common circumstance, nor is it a showstopper. Just thought you might like to know. Here’s the equation:

Place a layered PSD as an anchored object within a header or footer row in a multi-page threaded table, and then attempt to print to a PostScript printer. The job starts to print, then displays the above error dialog: “The Adobe Print Engine has failed to output your data due to an unknown problem.”

If it’s a single-page table (which makes header/footer rows pointless, but I digress), there’s no error. The same PSD placed in a plain old body row prints without problem, regardless of table length.

In my case, the printer is a Xerox Phaser 8400, but choosing any PostScript PPD produced the error, even if I attempted to generate PostScript using the tasteful Adobe PDF PPD. My little non-PostScript Epson inkjet printed with no problem. I could also export to PDF and print that to the Phaser successfully from Acrobat. So it’s not solely a Snow Leopard/Phaser issue.

This hit me as I was printing a handout comparing Acrobat Standard/Pro/Extended features. After narrowing down the culprit, I substituted a flattened PSD using a Photoshop path to silhouette it, and printed with no squawking.

NOTE: I suppose this marks me as a Luddite, but I never made the move to Leopard. I was reluctant to update my demo/training laptop because of early issues between Leopard and Creative Suite applications. To me, there was no compelling performance improvement, so I stuck with the old faithful cat. But when Snow Leopard was released, I thought I should catch up. I bought a Mac Pro desktop and started from scratch. With the exception of this oddball issue, it’s been fine. The new version of Suitcase runs fine, the apps behave, and all is well.

Let me know how Snow Leopard is working (or not working) for you.

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On another note, I’m over the cute cat names. How about just using the version numbers? Ten Point Six — what’s wrong with that? It’s definite, unambiguous, solid. Not fluffy.

Or memorable monikers like “Galactica” or “Bonaventure”? Maybe famous composers: “Hey! I just loaded Mozart!”