I had this problem a few weeks ago. The thing prints gibberish. Wingdings, random letters, numbers, etc. I unistalled the printer and all the associated software and then reinstalled the whole shebang. It worked! For a few weeks. Now, the same thing’s happening. Would there be some trick to getting this thing to print what I’m asking it to? Are there settings that address this type of thing? (I’m not real computer literate, though, so if it’s too complex, I’m lost). or do I have to go the route I did before?
I downloaded the most recent driver for the printer and installed that. Still gibberish.
Printer model, connection method, OS?
One app or everything?
Is this an older printer? You can buy a decent printer just about anywhere for <$50. Perhaps it’s time to move on from this relationship and go your separate ways…
Are you printing lots of different types of files, from lots of different applications, and still getting gibberish? Are you printing e-mails from your e-mail reader; word docs from Word; spreadsheets from Excel; photos from any photo app; etc.? Or is it just one type of file, or files from one application (or just a few), that are doing this?
If you poke around the driver set-up screen, you should find an option that says “Print test page”. See if you can find that. Does it work?
Also, it’s possible to have several different kinds of printer drivers all directed to the same physical printer machine. One of the most common set-ups has a regular driver (for your particular printer) physically attached to, e.g., LPT1 (or more commonly a USB printer these days), and to have a separate printer driver called “Plain text” (or something similar) that also prints to the same physical printer.
When you print a file from an application, you typically get a printer menu. (You may find it if you click on “Print”, or maybe you have to click on “Print set-up”, often under the File menu.) Note that the menu doesn’t actually list your printers – it lists your printer drivers and there could be two drivers that write to the same physical printer. If so, it might make a big difference that you choose the right one, depending on the type of file you are printing.
I’ve got a printer that’s 15 years old. It’s got all sorts of physical and mechanical problems, being so old and clunky – but no driver problems. It has two drivers addressing it (as described in the post above). Yes, you can get gibberish if you try to print to it using the wrong driver for the type of file being printed.
In particular, sending Postscript to a non-PS printer will result in hundreds of pages of creative gibberish. It’s particularly bad because instead of just faulting out, the printer assumes you want all this ASCII text stuff on paper.
Ok, it’s an Epson WF-2540, couple years old, a pretty serviceable little machine. I’m using Win 8.1 64 bit OS. It’s a network printer. I couldn’t find any place to run a test print, but I did ask it to print some info about the network connection and it did it fine. But printing from a document, e.g. an office text doc that I just created, gave me junk. I think I’m going to have to revert to uninstalling the printer and installing it. Again. But, dang, isn’t there something else?
Silly question, but did you try turning the printer off and back on? Sometimes the printer will get into a bad state and misprint everything that you send it, but if you just power cycle it, it will be fine. That leaves unanswered the question of how it got in the bad state in the first place, or how it keeps getting in that state, but you would at least have a workaround.
–Mark
If you look at the printer in Control Panel, you should be able to right-click its name/icon and select Troubleshoot. No promises it will find a problem, but it’s worth trying.
Also, selecting Printer Properties should bring up a tabbed box, and Print Test Page should be on the General tab.
If you decide (or are told) to re-install it, look around to be sure there aren’t any older versions that might be causing odd conflicts. Check in Control Panel’s Add/Remove Programs or whatever they’re calling it in Win 8.1 for any Epson apps, and look on the drive in places such as c:\epson or c:\program files\epson for leftovers.
There’s no way OP or hardly anyone else is going to know what files he sees there belong there and what can go.
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OK - I resorted to reinstalling the software, which, of course, solved the problem. Something related to the USBstorage or something was corrupted, according to some indication I got. I was unable to decipher some directions I found on line to resolve the issue and was reluctant to screw around with the registry, which would have been involved, so I took the easy way out, I guess. Thank you all for your input. xo
C.