HP 5L Prints PDF irratically

[Righty]

I have a HP 5L printer that when you print a PDF it prints the first few pages ok, but it starts to print the next couple of pages irratically. For example a tax form that they print from the government web will print pages 1 and 2 ok but when page 3 is printed, the numbered lines on the left side of the page print OK, but the right side where you the lines are drawn for the figures to be written is blank and it will print the right side of page 3 onto page 4, then page 5 comes out OK. It is not the web site since it will print up perfectly off other computers. Any ideas? I have re-installed the driver and used one downloaded from HP. The computer is using XP Professional and has 512 Mg of RAM. Also printing Word docs and Excel spreadsheets works fine.

 

[BadBigBen]

What version of Adobe Acrobat Reader do you have installed? might need an update or reinstall of Acrobat...

from the other thread: SFC is a windows own component checker, found in your windows/system32 drawer (run from the command prompt with options like SFC /SCANNOW [/SCANONCE etc.]), this will make sure that all protected systemfiles are not damaged and functioning correctly...

Ben

PS - other than that I am at a loss as to what causes your dilemma...

 

[Righty]

Thanks I will try those. The Adobe ver is 5.0

 

[BadBigBen]

the newest version of Adobe Reader is v6.0 (it was renamed from Acrobat Reader where that one was v5.1)...

Ben

 

[Righty]

I dowmloaded 6.0 to the computer and it still does it. The strange thing is that there is a tax program on the computer and that prints PDF's perfectly. Although it does have it it's own fonts and print settings in the tax program. It seems that it is only PDFs printed off the web. I have printed these same PDFs from the web perfectly on other computers and different printers.

Everytime this happens the light on the printer goes to an amber color and you have to press the resume button on the printer just ot get it to print. BUt say you are printing from the tax program (stated above), the printer starts printing fine within 3 secs. after you hit print

 

[BadBigBen]

That would kinda suggest that the PDFs aren't completely downloaded from the net, in order that Adobe be able to print them...

what browser are you using and version, what firewall and version, do you have ghostscript installed?

might want to try saving the PDFs first and print them from there, and see what happens...

Ben

 

[Righty]

I downloaded the PDFs directly to the computer and print from the file but it still did not work. It still printed the same way. The computer has IE 6.0. I am not sure what ghostscript is?

 

[Righty]

I also tried to install the Series 4, 5, 6, PS driver. It loaded but I had to stop the test page on the 22nd page. I uninstalled the PS driver and re-installed the PCL 5e driver. But I am still having the same problem.

 

[BadBigBen]

I'm sorry, but I can't help you any further on this issue... I lack the expertise on printer troubleshooting...

the only other thing I can think of would be to go into the BIOS setup and check your setting on the Paralell Port (ECP and/or EPP and the respective version of use)...

Have you gotten into contact with HP Support yet? did they help? or haven't gone down that avenue?

Ben

 

[Righty]

Thanks BBB for trying. I went to HP but they don't support that model anymore. You have top pay if you want support for this model. So I will keep trying different avenues. I will check the BIOS.