deskjet F2480 grey shadow when printing black text or images

[redrose90]

I own a deskjet F2480 and all printed black text & images have a grey shadow. There is no problem with colour ink or when scanning. Have checked ink levels, allignment etc etc...all of the tests and they come back fine. The text is also ok when I print the test paper for the allignment to afterwards scan! Please help!

[stix4]

Hello,

Thanks for the post.  With this one, since the text appears fine from the alignment page, that leads me to believe it may be the file(s) itself.   Just for testing purposes, can you copy and paste this file into another editor and print from there?  Same symptoms?  If so, I might suggest getting another similar file either locally or off the web and printing under the same circumstances, shadow remains?  I've also included an excellent print quality t-shooting document below that may assist with this issue.  Good Luck!

http://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c01760759

[monakader]

Hi stix4, 

Thanks for the detailed reply. I'm having the same issue as redrose90 but with an HP Deskjet D4360. I have tried printing with several documents, and tried all the approaches suggested in the link you provided. Any other ideas?

Thanks!

[dgausa]

Did you got the issue resolved? I have the same issue only Word docs will print OK, I have to paste everything to a word doc in order to print, images pdf etc do not print correctly.

[stix4]

Hello Dgausa,

Thanks for the post.  Strange, only Word prints correctly?  MAC or PC?  Which OS?  When you select print from another application other than Word, does it recognize your printer specifically or is it choosing something else?  Depending on the results of these questions, just for testing purposes you may ba able to try another print driver.  I've included a link below with the product page and driver downloads section.  Let me know the outcome and we can go from there....Good Luck!

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/softwareCategory?os=228&lc=en&cc=us&dlc=en&sw_lang=&product=38113...

[dgausa]

PC Windows 7..............I updated the driver, reinstall the driver, and still the same issue, change the ink cartridge, several aligment print and nothing.

Seems to what I read in some forums it common but I have not seen any solutions.

[Kyle_W]

The first thing I would try in this situation is a hard reset. 

Follow these steps to perform a hard reset on the printer.

1. Press the Power button to turn on the product.

2. With the product turned on, disconnect the power cord from the rear of the product.

3. Unplug the power cord from the wall outlet.

4. Wait at least 15 seconds.

5. Plug the power cord back into the wall outlet.

6. Reconnect the power cord to the rear of the product.

7. If the product does not turn on by itself, press the power button to turn it on.

Try to print again. If you are still having issues with the way the printouts look, proceed to the steps I have listed below. 

Since you mentioned that the alignment page looks fine, the first thing I would check is to see if the self test page looks fine as well. To print the self test page, press and hold the Power button and the Cancel button for 10 seconds.

If that page is showing the same shadows with the text, then its more than likely a hardware issue with the printer. This page doesn't require the printer to be connected to the computer to print, so it doesn't use the driver. 

If that page looks fine, the I would recommend that you take a look at the following document that I have linked below, as I believe it is a driver setting issue. 

Troubleshooting Print-Quality Issues

More specifically the section "Solution four: check the print settings".

Try those things and get back to me with the results and I will see where we can go from there.

If I have been helpful or if you’d like to say thanks you can click the white star under my name to give me Kudos.  I really appreciate it!

Best of luck,

Kyle

[dgausa]

Hard Reset still same issue.

The self test page printed all fine.

All possible solution have been looked at the past with no succes.

[boudu]

ditto. 

this happened after, following a black cartridge change, i accidnetally placed the alignment sheet incorrectly (pushed to to left instead of right), and was cured when, prompted after turning it off and on, i redid the alignment.

the shadow appeared in the test sheet (and some but not all other places).

[TatiTait]

Hi Kyle,

Thank you so much for sharing your solution. Unfortunately, it doesn't work for me because my Adobe does not let me check both "let printer choose the color" AND "print gray scale"... The moment I select "print in grey scale", it erases the check mark in the "let printer choose color" under the advanced menu. Wondering how that did not happen to you? I have the latest Adobe version.

I am writing more to agree with you about this issue. HP NEEDS TO GET IT TOGETHER!! This complaint goes 9 years back! How many versions of Adobe and HP drivers can that be? I am pretty frustrated because I have been dealing with this for almost a year with both an old and brand new Mac laptops. I've troubleshooted everything, as you have– and really hoped your soluntion was it...  I have been converting my PDFs into unformatted and messy Word docs so that I can print them. But I cannot do this any longer. I am about to buy a new printer and it WON'T be HP...

Thanks for trying to find a work around this issue.