HP Photosmart 7520 - Windows 7 - Double Sided Printing Shrinks Word 10 Text Margins

[Mary_Ellen]

I'm not sure if this is a printer problem or a Word 10 problem.  I am typing manuscripts with headers and footers with a one-inch margin all around.  The margins are fine when I instruct the printer to print on one side of paper.  When I instruct printer to print on both sides of the paper, the margins and text shrink.  Why? How can I stop this? 

Thank-you

[AlwaysNeon]

This does happen frequently, and it deals with the dry-time on the ink you are using. The printer makes small adjustments so that ink does not transfer onto the rollers and then back onto the paper you are printing on. This can be disabled, however, and here is a link on how to do that written by one of my colleagues :

How to Assign Alternate Print Drivers in Different Versions ... - HP Support Forum - 1957011

This should help you resolve your issue. 

Let me know! 

[Mary_Ellen]

AlwaysNeon,

Thank you for your prompt reply and willingness to help.  I spoke with a technician yesterday and today.  I've spent at least  five hours on this topic--all to no avail. 

The technician took control of my computer remotely.  Among  other things,  he did exactly what you recommend--changing drivers.  Although I cannot remember exactly what drivers he tried out, I recall a driver of  a much lower model number as being one of them--It did not solve the problem. 

Although I cannot articulate exactly what he said, it has been decided that the instructions between the duplexer and the spooler is being converted to print a scaled version of my Word document.  Since the printer hardware is not defective, HP has sent this issue to their software specialists and they will respond in a few days.  I'll keep you posted and share the solution, if there is one, on this board.

Once again, thank you for your thoughtful concern.   msobule

[AlwaysNeon]

That will be greatly appreciated. I do think that this might be a aspect of the firmware, and the margin are that the rollers need to pick the paper up in order to duplex. So I will be looking further into this as well. 

I guess we'll just meet in the middle with whoever finds out something first! 

Have a great week! 

[Mary_Ellen]

Thank you.   Actually, in spite of my less than solid understanding of computers, printers, etc. I do recall the tech mentioning a roller issue in the duplexer and that it required further research.  You are probably on the right track!  I have not heard back from HP yet.  My guess is that this is an issue with many of their printers.....

Mary Ellen

[AlwaysNeon]

Mary Ellen, go ahead and follow Shane's instructions and try those drivers. I am not sure what drivers the technician tried, but I have seen this issue resolved through this method before. 

http://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Printer-All-in-One-Software-Drivers-e-g-Windows-8/How-to-Assign-Alterna...

Just as an additional note, try the Deskjet 9800 driver as well.

Let me know how this goes! 

[Mary_Ellen]

I was with a technician today for 2 hours.  The 9800 driver that a previous technicial installed was removed during this session--it did not work. 

I have a conference call scheduled for 8:00 am Monday with a technician  who specializes in printer issues. 

Fingers crossed....

[AlwaysNeon]

Alright, well let me know what you find out, I will be bringing this up with our engineers as well this Thursday. If I find out anything, you'll be the first to know. 

I hope you are having a fantastic week! 

[Mary_Ellen]

After two hours on the phone Monday am with a tech from Canada, nothing was resolved.  He said he would call back in three days with a resolution to this issue. He reviewed all the previous protocols for troubleshooting and did a few new diagnositics.  He looked into the driver cache and reviewed some .cab files and the Service Pack 1.  He did some tweaking, but I can't explain that to you adequately.  Also, the "driver cache" folder was not where it is supposed to be, but he eventually found it.  Still no results.

I used three separate programs Word, Adobe PDF and my ArcSoft scanning software (Canoscan 8800F scanner) to test the printer.  With the duplexer ON, the margins were scaled on all three print jobs.  With the duplexer OFF, the print jobs were not scaled back. 

I hooked up my little Acer Netbook (O/S Windows XP) and printed from that--same duplexer problem--scaled back margins on my documents.  My conclusion is that this problem is not with my computer (HP Slimline S5610y), but the printer, but I'm no expert.

The tech did offer to send me a new printer, and I'm will accept this offer in the next phone call.  My personal feeling is that this issue is not just with my HP7520 AIO, but with all of them, and I would expect the same scaling problem with a replacement.

What a mystery!

[AlwaysNeon · Accepted solution]

I spoke our engineers and I found out that this is not a problem, this is in fact part of the design for the machine and this will not change. The reason that this happens is because before the printing can happen the rollers have to be able to grab the paper and pull it through the paper path. The first page is held by the output roller, while the second page reduces in size so the main roller can maintain contact with the paper. This affects all inkjets and not just your particular model. 

This can be avoided through manually duplexing the document you are printing rather than using the automatic duplexor. This will be your only and best option when you are printing documents which have a smaller than allowable margin for duplexing. 

I hope this information is useful to you.

Have a great weekend!