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Miscellaneous Printout Problems

Incorrect or garbled characters
Incorrect margins
Printout has a slight slant
Inverted image
Blank pages print
Printed side 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.

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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) or in the Page Setup dialog box (Macintosh). Make sure the settings are appropriate for the paper size you are using. See the online help for details.

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Printout has a slight slant
  • If Fast Economy is selected in Paper & Quality Options in Advanced printer settings (for Windows), or in Print Quality which is available when you select Advanced mode in Print Settings (for Macintosh), change it to Economy.
    (Fast Economy is only available when the paper type is plain paper.)

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

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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.

  • Check the Skip Blank Page setting by clicking the Speed & Progress button on the Maintenance screen of the printer driver. If it is selected, blank pages in your data are not print. (for Windows only)

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Blank pages print
  • Check the printer settings on the Main window (Windows) or in the Page Setup dialog box (Macintosh). 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

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Printed side 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.

  • Select Thick paper and envelopes in the Printer and Option Information window (Windows), in the Extension Setting dialog box (Mac OS X). See the online help for details.

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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

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