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

[mj0728]

This printer is a piece of junk! None of these "solutions" solves that basic problem.

I bought it to replace an all-in-one  HP Officemax because I wanted better quality photo printing. The regular document printing was fine, even if it did require manual duplex printing.  There are so many problems with this printer that I've given up. No auto duplex with acceptable margins. Sure you can do a manual duplex, but it's a pain in the neck with the paper feeder having a door and the printer grips the paper so that it's difficult to remove the paper that's already started to feed.

No print preview in the properties, no fast draft. I keep getting a message that my settings are incompatible. As I said, this printer is a piece of JUNK! HP should be ashamed!

Supposedly it will print from my phone. The one time I tried it, I got a 4X6 photo with margins (again!) around the photo. No option to print it borderless.

[CarolW-Y]

I agree.  I hate this printer.  What on earth would anyone want with a printer that messes up the margins?  And it certainly is not necessary--the old one I had printed in duplex and didn't do that.  I bought this specifically so I could do automatic duplex printing.  And I need the margins I specify.  At the very least, the box should have a "warning label" that tells users who actually want their pages ot look the way they lay them out to choose another printer.  I don't care if I never own another HP printer.  Obviously the designers/engineers set a pretty low bar when it comes to acceptable printing. 

[PW_UK]

Personally, I do not think there is anything wrong with these printers (the problem is commonplace with successive models): it is just poor software, which should be easily correctable (in my view). You will see from my previous posts that I have tried the various 'workarounds' kindly suggested by HP staff writing in a private capacity in the forum:

http://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Printer-All-in-One-Software-Drivers/Duplex-margins-and-distortion/m-p/2...

but I am afraid none worked fully (but thanks for the suggestions).

What I would like to see (apart, of course, from updated software to correct the problem) is for anyone with access to HP staff who reads these postings to try and get someone with detailed technical knowledge in HP to issue an official statement about the duplex printing/margin problem:

1. What is the real requirement for the duplex rollers to grip the paper, in terms of non-printable margins?

2. Is there really no reason why HP software cannot compare these requirements with the margins set in the application (at least in MS Word, the commonest), and if sufficient margin is set, not to add more and shrink all the content?

3. If the answer to (2) is that there is actually a good enginnering reason with these printers to add margin irrespective of already wide margins set, then why can Canon (for example) make duplex printers in this price range which do not show the problem, but HP can not?

I am afraid HP Customer Support in the UK refused to answer the questions.

[Marlton]

I've done several experiments with margins and what I find is the printer needs 5/8 inch along the 11" side and 3/4" on the 8 1/2 side (of course a "letter" size in the USA of 8 1/2" X 11"), but as you point out it always adds a 1/4 of an inch all around. I'm done experimenting, but since the end result is the the type size you've selected is not what is printed, is totally unacceptable. I just switched from a Lexmark and it did not shrink things!

[CarolW-Y]

The old HPs didn't either., even the one I had that had auto duplex.  What really gets me is the response that says this is not "a problem."  Hello, HP Engineers--Yes, it is a problem if the printer doesn't print what the user has specified--maybe not for you, but definitiely for the user.

[PW_UK]

I agree entirely that it is a problem, and is 'totally unacceptable'. Does anyone know of open-source or aftermarket software (generic) that might work with these HP printers, in the absence of any sort of satisfactory response from HP? I know there are printer applications that are sold to help you 'double up' (two pages/page), etc. What prompts me to ask this is that I know of truly excellent software that enables you to use old scanners long after the manufacturers have abandoned support for them with current operating systems, or adds functionality to the very latest too, and works with hundreds of scanners: www.hamrick.com. I can't recommend this highly enough. Is there anything similar out there for printers?

[Patrick-London]

I have only recently happened upon this thread, having had this “page shrinkage, or page size / scale reduction” problem myself. It arises, so far as I am aware, on various printers, on any version of Windows, and using any page-producing software, when using automatic duplex printing.

At the risk of going over old ground, I wanted to offer some help to any readers who are willing to accept that this printer simply doesn't do properly-scaled automatic duplex printing, but who nonetheless would like to use a manual method to overcome that problem.

Reducing the scale (and thereby increasing the margins) of each side of the printed page when auto-duplexing is inherent in the combination of the mechanical and software design of the HP 7520 printer. There is a "Preserve Layout : Yes" setting buried deep in its default Preferences, but setting that to "No" doesn't provide a perfect solution.

Apart from this extremely annoying characteristic (which it shares with many other printers), the 7520 is in other respects a decent device, and it does print to the correct scale when printing single-sided. It is therefore capable of doing so on both sides, provided that you are willing to do duplex printing manually.

I found it somewhat tricky to work out the best way to achieve this, and once I’d got there, I made a set of detailed instructions for myself, to explain how to do it for future reference. I’m making them available here in case they might be helpful to other people. As I use Serif PagePlus X8 as well as Word 2010, these instructions cover both, in that order.

[ji-be]

HP Photosmart 7520 can print front and back without shrinking the font!

Using Word 2016 on Windows 10

• Choose “Print All Pages” and then click on its down arrow to also choose “only print odd pages”

Under “Printer” click “Printer Properties” and choose Page Order: front to back

Click “Print”

• After all the odd pages have printed, put the stack as it was stacked by the printer into the bottom bin for printing the other side (the printed odd page facing up)

Choose “Print All Pages” and then click on its down arrow to also choose “only print even pages”

Under “Printer” click “Printer Properties” and choose Page Order: back to front

Click “Print”

The document should be in proper order with all pages without the font being shrunk –

Important Note: if the final page of the document is an odd page number, be sure to get the last page from the bottom bin to add to the document (it did not need to have an even page printed).

[Mary_Ellen]

HP replaced my printer after several attempts to produce a document without shrinkage.  Perhaps they might do this for you.  I now have an Office Jet Pro 8100 that works just fine.

[Rakkaus]

After considerable research and trial and error experimentation I have discovered that I can very successfully correct the reduced text/enlarged margin issue in printing a Word document (using Windows 10 and Word 2016 and an HP 7510 Photosmart All-in-One Printer ) by deselecting print-to-fit and selecting 100% instead in the print menu and by selecting narrow margins; also, of course, by selecting double-sided printing in that same menu (which has to be accessed by clicking the additional options button at the bottom of the main page of the print menu); this menu appears automatically upon clicking the print button in the document and also displays the page or pages to be printed.

I have tried printing a two or more page document manually and then refeeding the printed pages but with the result of having two copies of the document, which often is not desirable; otherwise, it is a manual feed operation to retain the display-size text and margins - which is possible but obviously defeats the duplex feature of the printer.