Getting missing/partially-printed lines when I print a 4 page (black) text Word doc. When I print the printer’s test page or a full-color picture, the black prints just fine. No banding.
I’ve read the troubleshooting section of the user manual, done all of the auto maintenance features on the printer (cleaning heads/rollers/etc), and done some research online, all to no avail.
Printer is < 1 year old and used regularly, but not excessively. Ink level is good.
What gives? Any ideas?
What model printer and exactly which driver are you using?
What OS and which version of Word? If you create a new Word doc (neat tip - if you type =rand(10) you’ll get 10 lines of generic text) does it print OK?
If you change the font to something like Arial or Times New Roman (very generic fonts) does the document print OK?
There’s a setting on many HP laserjets (that’s what I’m primarily responsible for at work) that can cause this with some driver/font combinations, it’s under the printer Properties - Advanced tab, Printing Defaults - Advanced, look for “Send TrueType as bitmap” and enable it. Not sure if inkjets have that setting.
If your printer is a HP, than I would not be surprised that it fails like that after the warranty has expired…
Is it just from Word or do other apps print banded as well?
If it’s just in Word, is it just that particular font or all fonts?
Could it be just an ink-saving feature that’s activated in the printer driver? Do the printed parts appear as black as the test page?
Get to a DOS Command box and type this:
COPY CONFIG.SYS LPT1:
That will copy the config.sys file to the printer on LPT1 – the normal place for your printer. It should produce a few lines of text on your printer. If that looks OK, then the problem is in Word. If that shows the same print problems, then the problem is with the printer settings, or a hardware problem.
Is Word configured to print in draft, ink-saving, or low-quality mode?
I’m on a Mac, using Word for Mac and a Canon MP560.
The first 4 drafts of this doc printed perfectly (on a different day). Then yesterday it printed with whole paragraphs missing, and today, 1 page with hardly anything on it.
I changed the text color to a dark, dark green and it printed perfectly (although a slightly lighter green than I expected, but it could have been built w/ cyan, yellow & magenta to get that value of color.)
I have a feeling I just need to get a new black cartridge…
Green would normally be a combination of cyan & some yellow, no magenta. But some deeper shades may have a bit of black also, to get them darker. So running low on black would explain that.
Another test would be to use one of the single-ink colors, cyan or magenta, and see if that prints OK. If so, the problem probably is ink cartridges.
If it’s indeed a matter of ink, I wonder why the printer test page is printing text using your colored cartridges instead of the black…
Well I’m the one that changed the text to a color to see what would happen. (I may have confused you: there was a printer test page printed at one point in my troubleshooting, but mostly I was testing my Word doc) But you do bring up a point. The printer test page printed the black perfectly (except that there was only a small amount of it on that page).
Maybe it has to do something with the fact that when it prints a page full of text, it prints that very quickly, and maybe for some reason the black ink level (or whatever may be clogging the “exit”) can’t keep up. When I print things in color, the printing goes slower, and maybe the black can keep up??
OK, just did a test: Printed a page each of 100% cyan, 100% magenta, and 100% yellow. All printed perfectly.
Then did a test page of 100% magenta + 100% black, which should have printed black, but it came out looking like 100% mag + 20% black.
Has to be the black cartridge.
Crap- I have a black cartridge AND a “PGBlack” cartridge! How do I know which is problematic? Anybody know the difference between the two??