In other words, if you don't have a bidirectional, you may have to buy one and try it on your printer. If the fault lies not in the cable, then it may be that your parallel port has gone pffffft . Among other things, the slender pins that provide the necessary connection may be loose, bent or otherwise out of shape. But before you open your box and replace the port, connect your printer and your new cable to someone else's computer, set it up, and see whether you get printed pages. If the printer does behave admirably on the second computer, then you have pinpointed the port on your machine as the culprit.
Parallel ports are cheap.
I talked to Canon, by the way, and the technician said that if all those steps fail, to get back in touch with the company. There is always the remote chance that the refurbished printer was a dud as well. We welcome questions from readers, but cannot answer phone queries. Include information about your computer, including its make, operating system and size of RAM and hard drive. All rights reserved.