Printers Problems

Printers Problems

Incomplete characters

When you look at the printed paper, you might see that part of each character is missing. For example, for the letter “A” you see just the top part of the “A”, or just the bottom part, or everything except the middle. That means you’re using an ink-jet or dot-matrix printer, and some of the ink jets or pins aren’t successfully putting ink onto the paper.

If you’re using a dot-matrix printer and the bottom part of each character is missing, your ribbon is too high, so that the bottom pins miss hitting it.
Push the ribbon down lower. Read the instructions that came with your printer and ribbon, to find out the correct way to thread the ribbon through your printer. If you’re using a daisy-wheel printer, also check whether the daisy-wheel is inserted correctly: try removing it and then reinserting it.

If you’re using a dot-matrix printer and some other part of each character is missing, probably one of the pins broke or is stuck.

Look at the print head, where the pins are. See if one of the pins is missing or broken. If so, consider buying a new print head, but beware: since print heads are not available from discount dealers, you must pay full list price for the print head, and pay almost as much for it as discount dealers charge for a whole new printer!

If you’re using an ink-jet printer, probably one of the jets is clogged and needs to be cleaned.
Follow the manufacturer’s instructions on how to test and clean the ink jets. If cleaning doesn’t solve the problem, try buying a new ink cartridge.

Substitute characters

When you tell the printer to print a word, the printer might print the correct number of characters but print wrong letters of the alphabet. For example, instead of printing an “A”, the printer might print a “B” or “C”.

That’s probably because the cable going from the computer to the printer is loose, so do this:
Turn off the printer. Grab the cable that goes from the computer to the printer, unplug both ends of the cable, then plug both ends in again tightly. Try again to print. If you succeed, the cable was just loose: congratulations, you tightened it!

If tightening the cable does not solve the problem, the cable is probably defective.
To prove it’s defective, borrow a cable from a friend and try again. If your friend’s cable works with your computer and printer, your original cable was definitely the culprit.

Once you’ve convinced yourself that the problem is the cable, go to a store and buy a new cable. It’s cheaper to buy a new cable than to fix the old one. Make sure you buy the right kind: your printer might require an IEEE 1284 cable.

If the new cable doesn’t solve your problem, try a third cable, since many cables are defective!
If buying a new cable doesn’t solve your problem, you have defective circuitry in your printer or in your computer’s parallel-printer port.

Get together with a friend and try swapping printers, computers, and cables: make notes about which combinations work and which don’t. You’ll soon discover which computers, cables, and printers work correctly and which ones are defective.

Extra characters

When using a program (such as a word-processing program), the printer might print a few extra characters at the top of each page.
Those extra characters are special codes that the printer should not print. Those codes are supposed to tell the printer how to print.

Your printer is misinterpreting those codes, because those codes were intended for a different kind of printer — or your printer cable is loose.

First, make sure the printer cable is tight.

Then try again to tell your software which printer you bought, by doing this.…

Windows XP: click “Start” then “Control Panel” then “Printers and Other Hardware” then “Add a printer”.
Windows 95 or 98 or 98SE or Me: click “Start” then “Settings” then “Printers”, then double-click “Add Printer”.

Windows 3.1: go to the program manager; double-click the Main icon then the Control Panel icon then the Printers icon.

Then follow the prompts on the screen. (To tell a non-Windows program which printer you bought, read the program’s manual: look for the part of the manual that explains “printer installation & selection & setup”.)

Misaligned columns

When printing a table of numbers or words, the columns might wiggle: some of the words and numbers might be printed slightly too far left or right, even though they looked perfectly aligned on the screen.

That’s because you’re trying to print by using a proportionally spaced font that doesn’t match the screen’s font.
The simplest way to solve the problem is to switch to a monospaced font, such as Courier or Prestige Elite or Gothic or Lineprinter.

Since those fonts are monospaced (each character is the same width as every other character), there are no surprises. To switch fonts while using Windows, use your mouse: drag across all the text whose font you wish to switch, then say which font you wish to switch to.

Unfortunately, monospaced fonts are ugly. If you insist on using proportionally spaced fonts, which are prettier, remember that when moving from column to column you should press the TAB key, not the SPACE bar.

In proportionally spaced fonts, the SPACE bar creates a printed space that’s too narrow: it’s narrower than the space created by the typical digit or letter.
If the TAB key doesn’t make the columns your favorite width, customize how the TAB key works by adjusting the TAB stops.

(In most word-processing programs, you adjust the TAB stops by sliding them on the layout ruler.)

Normally, the computer tries to justify your text: it tries to make the right margin straight by inserting extra spaces between the words. But when you’re printing a table, those extra spaces can wreck your column alignment. So when typing a table of numbers, do not tell the computer to justify your text: turn justification OFF.

Touching characters

The printer might bump some characters into each other, so that “cat” looks like “cat”. That means the computer fed the printer wrong info about how wide to make the characters and how much space to leave between them.

That’s because you told the computer wrong info about which printer you’re going to use.
Tell the computer again which printer to use.
For example, suppose you plan to type a document by using your home computer’s word-processing program, then copy the document onto a floppy disk, take the floppy disk to your office, and print a final draft on the office’s printer.

Since you’ll be printing the final draft on the office’s printer, tell your home computer that you’ll be using the office’s printer.

If you’re using modern Windows, here’s how: click “Start” then “Settings” then “Printers” then double-click “Add Printer”, then follow the prompts on the screen.

If you’re using Windows 3.1, do this instead:

Double-click the Main icon then the Control Panel icon then the Printer icon, then click the Add button, then double-click the printer’s name.

Margins

On a sheet of paper, all the printing might be too far to the left, or too far to the right, or too far up, or too far down. That shows you forgot to tell the computer about the paper’s size, margins, and feed, or you misfed the paper into the printer.

Software makes assumptions:

Most computer software assumes the paper is 11 inches tall and 8½ inches wide (or slightly wider, if the paper has holes in its sides). The software also assumes you want 1-inch margins on all four sides (top, bottom, left, and right).

If you told the software you have a dot-matrix printer, the software usually assumes you’re using pin-feed paper (which has holes in the side); it’s also called continuous-feed paper. For ink-jet and laser printers, the software typically assumes you’re using friction-feed paper instead (which has no holes).

If those assumptions are not correct, tell the software. For example, give a “margin”, “page size”, or “feed” command to your word-processing software.
If you make a mistake about how tall the sheet of paper is, the computer will try to print too many or too few lines per page.

The result is creep: on the first page, the printing begins correctly; but on the second page the printing is slightly too low or too high, and on the third page the printing is even more off.

To solve a creep problem, revise slightly what you tell the software about how tall the sheet of paper is. For example, if the printing is fine on the first page but an inch too low on the second page, tell the software that each sheet of paper is an inch shorter.

On pin-feed paper, the printer can print all the way from the very top of the paper to the very bottom. On friction-feed paper, the printer cannot print at the sheet’s very top or very bottom (since the rollers can’t grab the paper securely enough while printing there). So on friction-feed paper, the printable area is smaller, as if the paper were shorter.

Telling the software wrong info about feed has the same effect as telling the software wrong info about the paper’s height: you get creep.

So to fix creep, revise what you tell the software about the paper’s height or feed. If the software doesn’t let you talk about the paper’s feed, kill the creep by revising what you say about the paper’s height.

If you’re using a dot-matrix printer that can handle both kinds of paper (pin-feed and friction-feed), you’ll solve most creep problems by choosing pin-feed paper.

If all printing is too far to the left (or right), adjust what you tell the software about the left and right margins; or if you’re using pin-feed paper in a dot-matrix printer with movable tractors, slide the tractors to the left or right (after loosening them by flipping their levers).

For example, if the printing is an inch too far to the right, slide the tractors an inch toward the right.