Weird printer ''progress'' counting

When I print stuff, I rarely look at the printer folder. However, when I do, I notice some odd numbers coming up under the “progress” column. I’m sure I’m supposed to see which page the printer is on (ie. 5 of 10 pages). This is not the case however. The “x” number is some ridiculous number seemingly unrelated to the actual page being printed.

Example: last night I was printing a 10 page document from a website (not that this matters since it does the same thing if I print from a word processor program as well). In the progress column prior to printing, I see “10 pages”. When the printer (HP DeskJet 930C running from a WinME OS) started printing, the following numbers appeared in the “x” position:

4;11;16;20;34;38;454;48;52;55;61;67;73;87;92;97;102;108;113;117;122;129;133;142;146;152;158;166;170;171;178;185;190;192;199;204;209;213;218;222;226;230

What the heck is all that about?

Other documents that print display odd series of numbers as well.

This isn’t a problem, really. Just damned weird.

:smack:

Sorry about the wide-screen. Looked good in preview.

bump

I am unsure which number you mean by “the ‘x’ number,” but I’ll share with you what I have noticed about most HP printer drivers. They will indicate the amount of data which has been transferred, not the number of pages.

Sorry, the “x” refers to “x of 10 pages” printing. The data thing sounds plausible.

Why in the world would HP do this?

My guess is: Because it’s easier to count bytes than to decode the bytes long enough to determine which ones represent page breaks.

Strange, indeed. Thanks for the answer.