Black ink printing shadow

[TommyKnapy]

Hi, I just bought a new inks for my printer, both black and colour, and installed them immediately. I also printed a test page and alligned the cassettes and everything seemed just fine. However when I wanted to print a PDF document I downloaded from the internet, text had a "shadow" behind it (basically the black colour is moved up and on its place, there's a gray equivalent of the text). So I tried restarting the printer, printing some test pages, even reinstalled the cassettes and the printer, but the issue still remains. As I said, I tried a few sollutions that are here in forum, but unfortunately it didn't help me at all. Thank you for any help

UPDATE: I tried giving the printer some rest over night and printed the same PDF I wanted to print yesterday. Majority of the text was printed correctly, but few letters and QR code and barcode on the page were with the same shadow as you can see on the photo

closer look at the text with noticable shadowoverall look at the test page from HP doctor software

[canddski]

I have exactly the same problem on an old Inkjet F4273 - subject of a separate thread

[LeeDiddy]

I have the exact same printer and issue.  Oddly, a small amount of documents have printed without issue (oddly Christmas address labels worked in Word), however most documents (pdfs, docs, online) are printing with a drop shadow.  On a Mac with Mojave. Tried alignment, etc...Lost on what is the next step.

[canddski]

Hi Lee

I had a long dialogue with an HP expert on the other thread.  We did a "deep" un-install of the F4273 driver s/w (info on other thread) and re-install.  I was hopeful this might fix the problem, but it did not.  I also experimented with an MS Word document:

• typed a normal line of text with some words in bold print - all printed perfectly
• Highlighted two bold words on that line and printed the page.  The highlighted words, and the words before it on that line  (but not the words after the highlighted section) carried the grey shadow beneath.
• Removed the highlighting and re-printed.  Everything perfect - no shadow!
• This establishes that the mechanical operation of the printer and the cartridges are OK - the shadowing can be turned on and off.

All PDF's have the shadow on both black and coloured sections on both Normal and Best print settings - the results are indistinguishable under a magnifying glass.  Its interesting that the shadow is below black text on PDF's, but above coloured PDF text.  It looks as if Text printing, which mostly relies on Truteype, is OK, but as soon as bitmap printing takes place, the shadow occurs.

My contact advised me to take the problem to local HP Support, however, as my printer is out of warranty they refused to help unless I paid, the cost of which would exceed the value of the printer.  I find it frustrating that there is clearly a problem with the print driver software and HP refuse to acknowledge and fix the problem.

[Betty0610]

@TommyKnapy

Welcome to the HP Support Community.

Try the steps from here: https://support.hp.com/us-en/product/hp-photosmart-c4700-all-in-one-printer-series/3794613/model/379...

Let me know if this helps.

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