Weird printer ''progress'' counting

Factual Questions
1

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.

2

:smack:

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

3

bump

4

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.

5

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

Why in the world would HP do this?

6

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

7

Strange, indeed. Thanks for the answer.