Text looks too 'bold' on inkjet compared to laser printer. Help!

[jt7747]

My HP laserjet (old - 4m) prints my document like this, with nice sharp text:

When printed on my colour inkjet (Hp officejet 8000 pro, brand new) however, it looks like this:

For some reason the text is more bold on the inkjet. This is a problem. Most of my pages are mono so I will print them cheaply on the laserjet. But some pages are colour so they need to go through the inkjet. At the moment the text looks different because the two styles don't match.

Please tell me how to minutely adjust the text thickness in Word. I figured if I turn up the thickness a little on the laserjet and turn it down a little on the inkjet the two will match and I'll be happy. But the only option I can see is bold or normal. That is not helpful.

Please put me right, thank you

 

[mikling]

It is likely that your older laserjet is printing with a built-in font as opposed to the inkjet system using the font that you are actually seeing on the screen. Check carefully as to what fonts are preloaded into the older laser printer and compare them to what you see on the screen.

I suspect this might be the cause.

 

[jt7747]

When enlarged the laserjet font looks just as it does on screen, the proportions are just right. The laserjet has a postscript module anyway. The inkjet text does not look elegant when you see it on the page, too bold. I would say the inkjet is the problem here, but thank you for the response.

 

[The Hat]

jt7747

I have come across the very same thing many times over the years.
The solution to your problem is to do all your text on the laser and then put the sheet through the inkjet for only the colour sections.
The cause of the problem is usually the laser, as you say it has a postscript module in it and thats what causes the difference in font quality.
The laser is using vector graphics (postscript font) to draw the fonts perfectly same as you see on the screen, but all inkjet printers use bitmap (True Type) fonts, little dots just like pictures thats why the type looks thicker.
You could use a standard laser printer (one thats not postscript) and then make sure you only use windows fonts and not the imbedded fonts in the laser printer itself..

 

[jt7747]

Yes, I guess that is the best solution. So you're saying it's the laserjet's fault for making text too thin rather than the inkjet's for making it fat and splodgy? I'm sure I could test this with some simple vector artwork, and we can test how both machines print lines of a known thickness.

I guess in Word I'll have to do the laser batch with no graphics (not sure how I'll hide them all) and then hide all the text when putting them through the inket (a bit easier, make all text white)

 

[The Hat]

jt7747

So you're saying it's the laserjet's fault for making text too thin rather than the inkjet's for making it fat and splodgy?

Its not the laser printers fault for interpreting the text correctly; the price of postscript printers are usually way out of the reach of most peoples budget and are mostly commonly used with the Mac computers rather than PCs.
The only time that people will notice the difference is when the two documents are printed side by side on the two different printers for comparison.
All the Digital colour printers in the high street stores today are (RIP) printers I.E. Postscript 3 printers.
So when it comes to text quality its the inkjet that fall down not the laser printer.
When you use your Word document to print the pages you need, first save the document then click on each picture and delete leaving the picture box behind then print the text.
When you want to print the pictures just undelete on each picture box or reopen the same document and as you already mentioned change the text to white and print again..

 

[jt7747]

That is very interesting, thanks. I am going to perform some tests between postscript and normal. I will also rasterise some enlarged text screenshots, scale them to size, and print them on both printers.

I never understood halftoning until recently, and I couldn't understand why grey text would come out horrible on my laserjet. Now I understand I can get really clean linework at 600dpi if I convert my graphics to 1 bit bitmaps beforehand. So I will try that with the fonts and let you know what I find.

 

[Kevinator]

You could rasterize all your documents first so that the text isn't text anymore and rather an "image" that way your laser printer will not use its postscript/built in fonts to create the document.

 

[leo8088]

It looks like a problem with the ink. What kind of ink is it, dye or pigment? I think it is a black dye ink. The text isn't sharp at all. Good quality black pigment ink will print much better than that.

 

[qwertydude]

I agree some of the ink looks like it is bleeding into the paper fibers. Is this printer refilled with dye ink. When I print text on my canon with pigment the text doesn't bleed on the paper like that.