72 6 - Maintaining and troubleshooting ENWW
Meaningless characters print
If an interruption occurs to a job that is printing, the printer might not recognize the rest of
the job.
Cancel the print job and wait for the printer to return to the ready state. If the printer does
not return to the ready state, cancel all jobs, and wait again. When the printer is ready,
resend the job. If prompted by the computer to retry the job, click Cancel.
Check cable connections
If the printer and computer are connected with a USB or parallel cable, the problem may
be due to a poor cable connection.
Make sure the cable connections at both ends are secure. If the problem persists, turn off
the printer, disconnect the cable from the printer, turn on the printer without connecting the
cable, and delete any remaining jobs from the print spooler. When the Power light is on
and not flashing, reconnect the cable.
Check the document file
The document file may be damaged. If you can print other documents from the same
application, try printing a backup copy of your document, if available.
Ink is smearing
Check print settings
z When you print documents that use much ink, allow more time to dry before handling the
printouts. This is especially true for transparencies. In the printer driver, select the Best
print quality, also increase the ink drying time and reduce the ink saturation using the
ink volume under the advanced features (Windows) or ink features (Mac OS) in the
printer software. However, note that decreasing ink saturation might give printouts a
“washed-out” quality.
z Color documents that have rich, blended colors can wrinkle or smear when printed using
the Best print quality. Try using the other print mode to reduce ink, or use HP Premium
Paper designed for printing vivid color documents. See Changing print settings.
Check the media type
Some types of media do not accept ink well, ink will dry more slowly and smearing
may occur. See Selecting print media.
Check the margin settings
If you are using a computer running Windows, make sure the option to minimize margins
is not selected.
