Printer is printing SOME shadow letters

[sarahthumper]

My printer is printing word documents with shadow text. However, it’s not shadowing all of the text; it was shadowing half of lines, full lines, and some lines had no shadowing. It is always the same text that is shadowed on repeated printings.

Some of the webpages I printed as a test also had evidence of shadowing. I had the document printed from another printer, and there was no shadowing. So, its not the documents themselves.

I have tried: turning it off/on, unplugging, reinstalling drivers, realigning the cartridges, cleaning the cartridges, putting a new cartridge in, and sacrificing a baby goat.

Any other suggestions??  

[Jeet_singh]

@sarahthumper,

Welcome to the HP Forums 🙂 I would like to take a moment and thank you for using this forum, it is a great place to find answers. For you to have the best experience on the HP forum, you could also visit our HP Forums Guide for First Time Here? Learn How to Post and More. I see from your post that you're having issues while printing from your HP DeskJet Printer. No worries, I'll be glad to assist you.

To provide you with an accurate solution, I'll need a few more details:

Have you recently made any changes before the issue started?

Is it happening only while printing from word or from other applications as well.

Are you able to make a copy from the printer?

In the meantime, let's try these steps here: 

I would suggest here is to do a hard reset on the printer and make sure that the printer is connected directly to the wall outlet and not to the surge protector.

With the printer turned on, disconnect the power cord from the rear of the printer and also unplug the power cord from the wall outlet.

Remove USB cable, if present.

Wait for 2-3 minutes, press and hold the power button on your printer for about 30 seconds to remove any additional charge.

Now plug back the power cable straight to a wall outlet without any surge protector or an extension cord and then plug back the power cord to the printer.

Turn on the printer and wait till warm-up period finishes and the printer is idle.

If you are facing any issue while using the printer then try using HP Print and Scan Doctor (PSDR). PSDR is an automated tool which can diagnose and resolve printing and scanning problems. Please go to this link: HP Printers - Using HP Print and Scan Doctor (Windows)  to download and run HP PSDR. Once you open the program, select your printer and click on “Fix Printing” to automatically diagnose and fix the issue.

Let’s try and make a “photocopy” to determine whether the issue is with the printer or not. Place a document on the scanner glass and choose “Copy” option. If the printer is making a good copy, then the printer hardware is fine.

If the copy comes out fine, then I would suggest this could be to due to software or driver conflict. 

I suggest you uninstall the printer drivers from the root level and then reinstall them by following the below steps:

• Press “Windows key” + “r” to get the “Run” window.
• Type "services.msc" to get Services – Go to “Print spooler” – Right-click and “Stop” the service.
• Now again open "Run" - Type “spool” and ok - Go to PRINTERS folder - delete everything in that folder.
• Go to services again - Start the print spooler.
• Now check for issue resolution.
• If the issue persists, also try clean installing the printer drivers. Here are the steps:
• First, unplug the USB cable from the printer if present.
• Go to Control panel – Programs and feature – Select all the HP DeskJet printer entries and uninstall them.
• Now go to Control panel – Devices and printer – Select all the printer entries and remove the device.
• Press the "windows key" + "r" to get the "Run" window open - Type "printui.exe /s" (There is a space between .exe & /) and press enter.
• Under print server properties, go to drivers - remove any entry there as well.
• Again, go to the Run window, type – “c:/programdata” – Go to Hewlett Packard folder, remove any printer related folders & files.
• Restart your computer.
• Please click here to download and install the software.
• Connect the USB cable if prompted and follow the on-screen instructions to complete the installation.

Please let me know if this resolves the issue, or if you require further assistance!

Eagerly waiting for your response!

that said, If the information I've provided was helpful, 

give us some reinforcement by clicking the solution and kudos buttons, 

that'll help us and others see that we've got the answers!

Good Luck.

[sarahthumper]

To answer your questions,

The last change I made was putting a new ink cartridge in, and that was several weeks ago.

Printing from PDF also shadow; it is the whole document that shadows, not just random lines like Word. Printing from Firefox also shadows, just not as much.

Making a copy turned out fine- surprisingly.

• Press “Windows key” + “r” to get the “Run” window.
• Type "services.msc" to get Services – Go to “Print spooler” – Right-click and “Stop” the service.
• Now again open "Run" - Type “spool” and ok - Go to PRINTERS folder - delete everything in that folder.

^^ At this step, the folder was empty, there was nothing to delete

I have followed all of these steps, and it's still shadowing.

[Jeet_singh]

@sarahthumper,

It's great to have you back and your patience is greatly appreciated. 

As I understand you have tried to uninstall and reinstall the printer drivers and unfortunately nothing has helped in resolving this issue.

In this scenario, I would suggest here is to uninstall the printer drivers and then create a new user account and once done, restart the computer.

Try to create a new local user and then try to install the printer. Follow the steps here to create a local account on your PC: Click here       

Now, login to the new account and then try to install the printer and check. 

Hope this helps, for any further queries reply to the post and feel free to join us again

Feel free to post your query for any other assistance as well,

It's been a pleasure interacting with you and I hope you have a good day ahead.

If you wish to show appreciation for my efforts, mark my post as Accepted Solution.

And click on the Purple Thumbs up icon at the bottom of my comment.

Regards,

[sarahthumper]

This still did not fix the problem

[Jeet_singh]

@sarahthumper,

Thanks for the update,

As I see you have exhausted all possible steps and nothing has helped to resolve this issue.

In this scenario, I will share you a private message with details. Please watch your inbox for more information.

Let me know if this helps!

Have a great day ahead! 🙂

[SHERRY4905]

I am having the SAME ISSUE!!!  (HP Deskjet F4235) 

I have two laptops that I am printing from (a macbook pro and a Dell) the same printing problem happens regardless of which laptop i am using.

 I have noticed a few things that are very confusing to me.

(1) When I do a COPY using the printer the problem is gone. The copy is perfectly fine, no shadows. So it cant be an issue with allignment??? or the cartriges needing cleaning?????

(2) Also......not ALL of the text has a shadow all of the time.  If anything I print has a header or footer.  The header and footer text prints WITHOUT a shadow. Only the body of the text as well as any graphics have a shadow.

I too have done EVERYTHING possible to try to resolve this issue.  HP PLEASE HELP!!!!!!

[asmita6658]

@SHERRY4905

Hi there, thank you for contacting the HP Support Community. Appreciate your trying the steps previously suggested. To better assist you - Are you printing from a word or pdf? Have you tried printing any other other documents? 

Let me know. 

[sarahthumper]

Yes to all of the above. Word, pdf, internet screens. All prints with semi-shadows. All documents vary with shadows.

[SHERRY4905]

It doesn’t matter where I print from. All programs have shadows around letters as well as pictures.