Deskjet 3700 all in one prints spotty barcodes and only bottom half of text?

[Lilygal]

Suddenly printer is acting up, as told earlier. I ran diagnostics on it and cleaned it 4 times. To no avail. I gave up and came here. Need to ship some stuff and need good barcode print. Thanks for any help.. I'm a computer novice, please be easy on explanations.

[MKazi · Accepted solution]

@Lilygal

Let me take a moment to thank you for posting on the HP Support Forums. 

MKazi is at your service. 

I understand that you have an HP DeskJet 3700 All-in-One Printer and it prints spotty bar codes and only bottom half of text. You have done a remarkable job in troubleshooting this issue. 

To assist you with accurate information I would require more information regarding this: 

• Are you using original genuine HP ink cartridges or refilled ink?
• Are the ink levels good?
• Is the printer able to make a photocopy successfully? If yes then it indicates that the printer and ink cartridges are all fine. 

While you respond to that. I recommend you to perform the following steps to isolate the issue and arrive at a fix: 

• Disconnect the power cable from the printer while the printer is still ON.
• Disconnect any other cables if connected the printer.
• Press and hold the printer’s power button for 15 seconds.
• The printer should be directly connected to the wall outlet and not to a surge protector.
• Reconnect the power cable to print and the printer should power ON by itself. If the printer doesn’t power ON then please manually power it ON.

Please perform the following steps from this HP document: https://hp.care/2I4ImsV

• Step 7: Align the ink cartridges.
• Step 8: Print a Print Quality Diagnostic page.
• Step 9: Examine the color blocks for defects.
• Step 11: Examine the alignment lines and green color block for defects.
• Step 13: Manually clean the area around the ink nozzles

I genuinely hope the issue gets resolved without hassles and the unit works great. Let me know the results. 

All the best! 🙂