Home
Miscellaneous Printout Problems

Incorrect or garbled characters
Incorrect margins
Printout has a slight slant
Inverted image
Blank pages print
Print out is smeared or scuffed
Printing is too slow

Incorrect or garbled characters
  • Clear any stalled print jobs from the Spool Manager (Windows Me and 98 SE).
    See Canceling Printing

  • Turn off the printer and computer. Make sure the printer’s interface cable is securely plugged in.

Top
Incorrect margins
  • Check the margin settings in your application. Make sure that the margins are within the printable area of the page.
    See Printable area

  • Check the printer settings on the Main window (Windows). Make sure the settings are appropriate for the paper size you are using. See the online help for details.

Top
Printout has a slight slant
  • If Fast Economy is selected in Paper & Quality Options in Advanced printer settings, change it to Economy.
    (Fast Economy is only available when the paper type is plain_papers.)

  • Make sure that the paper is loaded into the sheet feeder correctly.
    See Loading Paper

Top
Inverted image
  • Clear the Mirror Image check box in the printer driver, or turn off the “Mirror Image” setting in your application. For instructions, see the online help for the printer driver or for your application.

Top
Blank pages print
  • Check the printer settings on the Main window (Windows). Make sure the settings are appropriate for the paper size you are using. See the online help for details.

After trying one or more of these solutions, run a printer operation check to check your results.
See Running a printer operation check

Top
Print out is smeared or scuffed
  • If the paper is curled toward the printable side, flatten it or curl it slightly in the opposite direction.

  • Clear the High Speed check box in your Advanced printer settings. See the online help for details.

  • Run the Cleaning Paper Guide utility. Open the printer driver and click the Maintenance tab (for Windows), click Cleaning Paper Guide, and follow the on-screen instructions. If the problem persists, ink may have leaked inside the printer. In this case, wipe the inside of the printer with a soft, clean cloth.
    See Cleaning Your Printer

Top
Printing is too slow
  • Close any unnecessary applications.

  • If you print continuously for an extended period, the paper may temporarily stop feeding or the print head carriage may pause for a while. This is to slow down the printing speed and prevent the printer mechanism from overheating and being damaged. If this happens, you can continue to print, but we recommend stopping and leaving the printer for about thirty minutes with the power on. (The printer does not recover with the power off.) After you restart, the printer will print at normal speed.

If you try all of the methods above and cannot solve the problem, see the following:
Increasing the Print Speed

Top