Solved: Avery Business Card Printing: "WANDERING MARGIN PROBLEM- upp... - HP Support Community

econobiker · ‎11-20-2009

Does anyone have a clue if HP has a clue on how to instruct someone to solve this issue of perforated business card stock not printing out correctly? This issue is all over the internet now.

I plan on posting to Consumerist website in hopes that they take up the problem.

And look at all the other posts for business card print problems to see that I have looked in this forum and no there are no solutions. And no thicker card stock should not matter since everyone here has probably seen an HP grab up more than 3 or more regular sheets of paper and print on the top one ok...

JoeKahl · ‎09-14-2010

I am suffering from this WANDERING MARGIN PROBLEM too. I

have the HP Officejet Pro L7680 All-in-One printer, Windows XP, Office 2007, Microsoft Publisher, Avery 8873 template. I have done everything right. Still my business cards are printing perfectly on plain paper and they print right from the top on the expensive business card stock. It is very frustrating.

I have tried the ideas suggested here. I have tried the Thick Paper, the Photo Greeting Card, the Best quality and the Normal quality. I have tried lightly holding my finger on the card as it feeds in. I tried slightly bending the sides of the card up. I get a successful print one-out-of-every-five. I am so freakin disappointed I could scream. I have been laid off and I have networking and interviews to attend and I need my business cards!

The people at Avery are useless. They wanted me to call Microsoft! I kept telling "Meg" that the alignment was fine for plain paper and incorrect with Avery business card stock. I asked her if she was familiar with HP printer settings for thick card stock. She kept telling me to call Microsoft. I wonder if she was actually an automaton who just cannot accept any responsibility.

I thought I bought the best brand printer. I tried Brother brand. They are really crummy. I really expected HP to be better.

In the end I got some business cards that are acceptable. But I wasted 80%! If you compare them they are not all aligned the same. With crappy capabilities like this I might just scrap my printer and contract the work at Office Depot. Who needs all this aggravation?

Joe

View solution in original post

econobiker · ‎11-20-2009

I just sent 4 standard pages taped together on the edges through a 5510 and the upper margin was correct for the Avery business card.

econobiker · ‎12-14-2009

HP 5510 All in one vs Avery Linen textured two side printable clean edge business cards # 8873 and white single side business cards 28371.

Best I ever got was to choose " HP Photo Greeting Cards" as the media and then print as "Best", then use a hand held flash light to look into the printer determine if the page began printing on the edge of the page or on the first business cards. If it started printing on the margins I cancel the printing via the unit and reprint. I also found that slightly ~flipping up- the left and right edges of the entering top margin on the Avery card page seemed to help somewhat.

Ran into another problem with the paper ~jamming~ after printing 1/4 to three rows of cards. No clue why so I would cancel per the jam error window, the page would eject via the printer with no assistance from me. Sometimes flipping the page over would allow me to finish up the bottom rows on the reverse side for the two sided business card paper # 8873.

No problems printing same documents on standard print/copy paper.

Sad.

econobiker · ‎12-14-2009

Wonders of wonders then occurred when I began running this stuff through at "Fast Normal" and as the previously mentioned "HP Photo Greeting Cards".

Maybe the abrupt and faster feed requires higher pull strength or motor voltage. Color suffered at "fast normal" but it was acceptable trade off just to use the card pages.

Again hit the jam issue after several good prints at fast normal.

Still sad performance.

kate0613 · ‎01-27-2010

After over an hour with HP support, I'm still disgusted! I found this post and was thrilled to know it was not me! Has anyone found any consistent work-around for this? I'm tired of testing on expensive business card paper!

Any help would be appreciated!

graphics4fun · ‎01-29-2010

You might try and print a sample of your project on plain paper in gray scale first to save cost, then check the alignment against the Avery sheets. I use Broderbund Print Shop Pro to make business cards and there is an alignment tool in the print set up. It also requires you to select which avery stock you are using at the start of your project.

Hope this helps

kate0613 · ‎01-30-2010

Thanks for the idea. That software is really expensive, and out of my price range. I really don't need anything that fancy. I have no problem with the alignment on plain paper. It's only when I use the business card paper.

Has anyone had success with any other brand or type of business card paper?

econobiker · ‎02-02-2010

Graphics4fun,

Thanks for your take but software doesn't seem to be the issue. I can crank sample card prints on plain paper through easily. I even put 4 plain pages thick through ok (taped on the long edges).

It is like the HP printers do not catch the end of the business cards or register that these are at the correct place to start printing. That the cards can sometimes start ok and other times don't start ok seems to indicate a physical problem versus software.

And the fact that HP customer service doesn't recognize the problem is another issue as other people have reported. If HP customer service and supporting FAQs said flat out "Yes, some Avery business cards don't work with this list of printers. Sorry." would be a better answer than allowing people to be all frustrated and waste ink/cards on trying to make it work.

Thanks again.

econobiker · ‎02-02-2010

kate0613,

We have had the problem on both Avery and private label (staples- others) brand business card papers. I don't know if Avery does the private labels or not.

My latest solution is to grab up a free older Canon straight-though printer to try to get running to print the business cards only even if one color only. So HP basically loses on the printer ink sales if this works out. Oh well.

Later,

kate0613 · ‎02-03-2010

I just donated an old Canon printer I loved and that still worked. However, there were no drivers available for XP. I would have never purchased this HP had that not been the case. Now, I'm going to be forced to buy another printer, just so I can print business cards. I'll never purchase HP products again!

Avery Business Card Printing: "WANDERING MARGIN PROBLEM- upper margin issue

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