General Information

There are several different problems associated with printers.

Cables

* On most printers the cable must not exceed 8 feet in length. You might be able to use one that goes as far as 16 feet but the printer might not work correctly.

Additionally, if you are using....
a) a switch box the combined length of all cables must not exceed the above limits. That means you start measuring from the plug on the back of the computer and trace the cable all the way to the plug on the back of the printer.
b) if you are using a Scanner in tandem with a printer limit the cable length as above.
* The newer printers require either a Bi-directional cable or a IEEE-1284 cable. Both of these cables are special and cost more than a standard cable. Your printer's documentation should explain which to use.

Printers

* Printer is dead - Check the power cable, and the on/off switch if the printer has one. Some printers go to sleep automatically when they are not used for a few minutes but as soon as you press a key like FormFeed on the printer or when you send a job the printer comes on.

Memory

* When printing graphics, you might find that the whole page did not print out. Instead you might get a partial page to print and the remaining page is completely blank. This is a sign of not having enough memory.

Drivers

* You must install the proper drivers in order for printers to work in windows 95. Usually the drivers come on a CD-ROM or on a floppy. You can also download them from the manufacturer's internet site. Links are provided on this site next to the description of each printer.

Settings

* Sometimes a setting found on the Printer Properties under the "Spool settings" (which in normally set to "EMF") can be changed to "RAW" and correct some printing problems
* You must have the proper settings such as Landscape or Portrait.



Applications (i.e. programs)

* You must select the proper printer driver from the application prior to sending the job to the printer. This is done by selecting File Print and pressing the Setup tab, after which you select the printer's name from the drop down selection list by pressing the down arrow next to the printer's names.



A common problem

When you try to print you get many pages with some characters at the top of each page but the rest of the page is blank.

There can be several causes.

* The cable is too long
* The windows driver is not installed
* The windows driver is corrupt

go through the "Testing the printer" section below.

InkJet printers

* All of the sudden the printer acts like its printing but there is nothing on the paper.

Most likely the ink cartridge has run out of ink.
* The colors look funny, some reds look purple and greens look yellow.

Either one of the colors in the cartridge has almost run out or color or some of the cartridge inkjets have clogged up with dry ink.

Try a different cartridge. As far as cleaning the cartridge writing head of any dry ink, the manufacturers advice against doing this because it could scratch the surface. Of course if you are throwing the cartridge away then it doesn't really matter so you can try cleaning it. Wet a Kleenex and rub the end of the cartridge until its nice and clean. Then dry it carefully. (This can get messy since you will be rubbing off ink so you might want to wear some rubber gloves). If after cleaning it it still has wrong colors then one of the ink cartridge containers has run out of ink.

* When trying to print, nothing happens and the On-Line light comes on.
One possible problem is that the selection for color vs. grayscale is incorrect. When you select File Print from the application, click on the Printer button, and select the options, then under Graphics select the appropriate Color or grayscale bullet selection.



LaserJet Printers

1) The printout has black vertical strips running down the page

The toner drum might have a scratch on it. Most likely changing the toner cartridge will correct this problem.

2) The printout has black horizontal strips running across the page

The toner cartridge has a drum that is not perfectly round. Changing the cartridge should fix this problem.



Dot Matrix

...coming soon

Testing a Malfunctioning printer

To troubleshoot a malfunctioning printer you should do the following.

1) Check to see if the ON light is on

2) Perform the printer's self test. This is described on the User's manual and varies with each printer.

3) Go to a DOS prompt, either by pressing Start Programs CommandPrompt or by pressing <F8> as the computer is booting immediately after you see the message "...starting windows 95..." on the black screen and selecting "DOS prompt".

When you see the "Windows 95 startup menu" press the numeral "6" to select "6. command prompt only".

At the command prompt (C:>) enter the following

DIR > LPT1:

and press <enter>

(the above is DIR {space} greater than sign, {space } LPT1 {colon}).

if the printer is working correctly and the cabling is good, you should get a clean copy of your directory listing for drive C:. The contents you see is not important and varies from computer to computer. What you are after is to make sure that the printer is capable of printing correctly.

After you are finished, depending on where you are, if you are on a DOS prompt (using the F8 key as described above) you can simply turn the computer OFF and then ON.

If you are on a windows 95 DOS prompt screen then type in the keyboard

EXIT

and press the enter key which will bring you back into windows.

This is a simple test, if you got clean readable output on the printer then the printer and the cables are working fine, which means that if you can not print correctly under windows 95 then you have a driver problem.



Misc

* Microsoft Works / Canon printers
Problems with Microsoft Works printing correctly with Canon Bubble Jet 250 (and others)
While printing with Works, some documents might not print entirely, or the printer might not use fonts properly.
This problem is most likely caused by the BIOS setting of the printer that is either set to ECP or EPP. To correct the problem go into the BIOS and change the parallel port mode setting to SPP (standard), save the changes and go into windows, then go to the | Control Panel | System | Device Manager | and remove the parallel port. Then restart the computer and allow it to detect the new parallel port mode.