A few months ago we had a problem like this and it turned out, after far too many hours of testing, to be a bug in HP LaserJet formatters.  We suddenly had a rash of this problem on many printers in the dept., especially on one model, but also seen across other models.  HP replaced three of them as they were still under warranty.  I’ve sent three others to the stock pile or salvage which were no longer under warranty.  I had looked into replacing the formatter and the cost was the same as a new LaserJet.

It has to do with the LaserJet going into a low power, sleep mode, then not waking up.  You should be able to confirm whether you have this problem by shutting off the printer and turning it back on again—If I’m remembering the problem correctly you’ll have to kill off the Word process as well.

Hope this is helpful.  I’m sorry I can’t be more specific, but we never did nail down the troubleshooting very well – it seemed to behave slightly differently on different printers / computers.  I wrote up a much more detailed question on NAG at the time – search the archives for “laserjet 2015 formatter”.

From: MSU Network Administrators Group [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Bill Park
Sent: Thursday, July 30, 2009 1:07 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [MSUNAG] MS Office 2007 slow print/save

Hello All,

I recently have had a couple different users in my department who are using MS Office Ent 2007 have trouble with different office programs hanging up when they go to save or print.  I have checked to make sure none of the network drives (3-4 of them) are disconnected or broken as I know that can cause this problem.  All available updates/patches have been applied.  I also tried disabling 'Automatically search for network folders and printers' in folder options and it appeared to have worked for a bit but the problem is back.  The problem is pretty intermittent so it's pretty tough to troubleshoot and find a working fix.  I have also tried disabling any and all addons for the particular office app.  Tried disabling my A/V software (NOD32) temporarily as well to no avail.  I'm running out of ideas and was wondering if anyone else has experienced this issue and knows of a fix.

(If it helps the network printer they are connecting to is an HP Color LJ 4650)

Thanks,
Bill