Why does my printer sometimes print gibberish?

[gwlam12]

My printer is a Canon i560.

I'm only printing a PDF file. Sometimes the pages come out fine. Sometimes that same page comes out as gibberish. Why?

 

[PCHPlayer]

I had the same problem with my HP Laserjet 5P a while back. It only screwed up when printing from Adobe Acrobat Reader. I think a new version of acrobat reader fixed it.

 

[eno]

From what I have seen in the field usually its just a driver issue. Software related. Make sure the program you are using is current version and that the printer is running the latest off the net and for the correct OS. My 2cents.

 

[Peter]

Are you on legacy printer port or USB?

 

[gwlam12]

I'm on USB. I tried printing from both laptop and desktop using CutePDF and Adobe Acrobat Reader (newest versions).

This is what happens while printing, and everything after is gibberish. here

If I slow down with the printing (give time for the printer to take a break between pages), it will print out fine.

Only happens on PDF files, it seems.

 

[wseyller]

Sometimes this is trash stored in the NVRAM. If your printer has the capability to do a cold reset it would clear that out.

 

[Peter]

Hell no. Inkjets are pure pixel reproduction engines these days - they don't care about fonts, characters, lines, or whatever, at all. It looks like your PDF-to-pixels rendering engine is screwing up at the font rendering stage.
Try updating the printing application (Acrobat Reader in your case), and if that doesn't help, an updated printer driver.

 

[SilentRunning]

Originally posted by: gwlam12
I'm on USB. I tried printing from both laptop and desktop using CutePDF and Adobe Acrobat Reader (newest versions).

This is what happens while printing, and everything after is gibberish. here

If I slow down with the printing (give time for the printer to take a break between pages), it will print out fine.

Only happens on PDF files, it seems.

If by gibberish you mean those rectangular boxes then try upping your quality setting on your printer. I have had pdfs where when the text point size is small it prints rectangles if the printer driver is in draft mode. Setting to standard or high quality alllows the text to be printed.

 

[gwlam12]

Thanks. I'll try that next time I print my lecture notes out.

 

[gwlam12]

Okay, the standard/high quality setting didn't work.

However, I do notice now that it shows up all garbled when I do "Print Preview." SO. I'm assuming it's a software problem.