HP 7520 - Feint Print

Bad Raven

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Hope someone can help with this, its driving me nuts!!

My 7520 is wireless connected. It runs all self tests perfectly, the test print after "clean cartridges" being complete, clear and crisp, including its black text.

It prints photos perfectly.

However, normal text print from Laptop or iPad is often (though not always) very very feint, regardless of which source or program. It can be impossible to see the printed text at all unless the "Best" standard is chosen, when it it extremely light grey, but text is complete, even and (just) readable.


I have updated the driver, no change.
I have played around with settings, no change.

HELP!!!!
 
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stratman

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Welcome to the forum, Raven. Do not know your printer but did find some potential help from your printer's user manual.

On page 17 of your manual:

• Set the print quality and paper size settings according to the type and size of paper loaded in the input tray.

• If you want to print a black and white document using black ink only, do one of the following according to your operating system.
On Windows: Open your printer software, click Set Preferences. On the Paper/Quality tab, click
Advanced. Select Black Ink Only from the Print in Grayscale drop-down list under Printer
Features.
On Mac: From the Print dialog box, choose the Paper Type/Quality pane, click Color Options, and
then choose Grayscale from the Color pop-up menu.
If the Print dialog does not show printer options, click the blue disclosure triangle next to the printer
name (Mac OS X v10.6) or Show Details (Mac OS X v10.7). Use the pop-up menu toward the bottom
of the dialog to choose the Paper Type/Quality pane.


On page 55 of your manual is a section called "Solve print problem" which has a link to a page with a number of suggestions concerning poor print quality.

However, normal text print from Laptop or iPad is often (though not always) very very feint, regardless of which source or program.
I recall people having issues with Apple products and printing over WiFi, though I cannot recall specifics. Have you tried connecting your laptop to the printer directly with a cable to see if print quality suffers over a wired connection?
 

Bad Raven

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Thanks for reply. The printer is a Hewlett Packard Photosmart 7520 All-in-One

What happens when I print is regardless of the source, so an Apple iPad, a Windows 10 Gaming Machine, and a Windows 7 Laptop all give the same fault.

The printer ejects pages which should have black text that are either blank or if set to Best gives a perfectly even but feint grey print sometimes, but not always.

HOWEVER, ALL the printers onboard tests run perfectly and produce sharp clear deep coloured and black print and graphics.

Printing a photograph from either PC via the network works perfectly with a correctly toned/shaded image.

However, printing (say) a Word document results in either a feint grey text printout, or nothing visible.

Clean Cartridges prints a test page which is perfect.

Use "COPY" in colour on that test page and it prints some text lines that are perfect and some that look like the ink is running out (which its not since it prints the test page directly perfectly). Use "COPY" on that same colour test print in black and it "prints" a blank page.
 

PeterBJ

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The printer has two black cartridges, a pigment black for use on plain paper only and a dye black for use on photo paper and other special papers. It looks to me like the pigment black cartridge is delivering little or no ink, even if the print quality report suggests all is OK.

The problems with the COPY function also suggest ink flow problems to me. Are the cartridges refilled?

It is possible but not recommended to select white or light grey as text colour in Word, but I guess you haven't done so accidentally?

A test document that is independent of settings in Word is the "Windows Printer Test page". Please try printing that document and report the results.

I also suggest to try connecting the printer to a computer using a USB cable and try if the problems still exist. Sometimes a WiFi connection can cause strange problems, see this thread and specially notice this post.
 
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