Lines not printing correctly

[juniajon]

I have a document with High resolution tiff's that have straight lines, which print out as dots. Also a line created in InDesign does the same thing. I have all of the settings set to the highest quality, and nothing seems to fix the problem. Any help would be appreciated.

 

[jmgalvin]

First, I'd open the tiff in another app and print it - to make sure it's not a problem with the printer like a partially clogged head. You could also make a line in another app and check the print. If these print ok, you'll have to go further. If they don't run the various utilites that came with your printer. My experience has been that dotted lines were caued by a partially clogged head or fautly cartridge - quite common with refilled HP cartridges.

To check if it's an issue with ID, you could export to press quality pdf and try printing the pdf. If that prints ok, then you have some sort of thing with ID and print.

You could go to the Graphics section of Id print dialogu and select All under Images Send Data.

While I've never heard of a problem like yours being caused by color mismatches, you could try checking the color setting in the ID doc to make sure they are similar to your printer.



Using OSX 10.3.8 on a G4

 

[juniajon]

I printed one of the images in the document from photoshop and the same problem occured, also the problem happened at the press where we had the document printed and on our printers (other documents and images are fine).

Also, the document has only two colors black, and blue (Pantone 7459 U), the blue colors all print out improperly, even text. The black text elements are fine though there are a few black lines that come out not quite dashed, but squiggly.

I think the problem might have something to do with the color settings in InDesign, though they all look fine on screen, even after exporting to pdf, and to the best of my knowledge all of the color settings are set to the highest quality.

 

[jmgalvin]

It sure sounds like you have a partially plugged or defective head in the pronter somewhere although the problem at the print shop would indicate otherwise. I'm assuming that the prints you're doing are on a non postscript machine. If so, the machine will not recognize cmyk now will it recognize spot colors - if you have the pantone designated as such. If so take a look at the Output section in the ID print dialog. If you've selected a non postscript printer the output should say rgb.

Usually, when you have a color mismatch, the colors come out different but you don't end up with dashed lines. 7459u is 57% cyan, 6% yellow, 13% black, with no magenta. If you're coming up with a diffrent mix, something's not quite right.

If you used the Pantone in Photoshop and then selected the same in ID, you can have a color mismatch. To match the color, bring the tiff into ID and use the eyedropper to pick up the pantone. Then drag that color from the tools window to the swatches window and name it.

Have you made sure that the tiff is not RGB? You might also check whether color is designated Spot or Process in your docs.

Again, this should NOT cause missing parts of a line when printing. Barring a clog somewhere, the only thing I can think of is that there's some missing info in the tiff file or that the lines were created using something other than a line tool to draw them.

Using OSX 10.3.8 on a G4

 

[smckinn]

i'm having the same problem with a file I'd like to print. the black lines aren't printing, but look fine on the screen AND print from illustrator. wondering if u figured it out

 

[juniajon]

never did resolve this. we sent the files to one of our outside typesetters who could not figure out the problem. he made a completely new file which worked fine for us.