Printer stopped printing PDFs

[annieg04]

I have been experiencing issues printing PDFs on my HP Officejet 250 for a while. When attempting to print from PDF the document prints so fast it barely leaves any ink on the paper, only straight lines or sometimes it manages to print but the text is outlined in black instead of solid. Either way, it is always a very faint color, almost never dark black.

At this point I have tested on my Windows computer, Mac, printing from different PDF programs including HP Smart Print, different documents, flattened, and every print setting you could imagine. So is it a problem with the printer itself? I have updated drivers, uninstalled and reinstalled both printer and drivers, factory reset the printer, turned on quiet mode so it prints slower (this helps but barely), replaced the ink cartridges, exhausted all options of alignment, cleaning, etc in the printer itself, and everything else I have seen online.

Now it started doing this to images as well, which was my one workaround to get documents printed properly. It starts a print and spits the page out in 2 seconds flat, maybe 5 seconds on quiet mode. What else can I do other than trash the whole thing?

[Irfan_06]

Hi @annieg04,

Welcome to the HP Support Community.

Thank you for posting your query, I will be glad to assist you.

I see that you are facing an issue with printing PDF documents on your Printer.

A) Please follow the steps below to perform a power drain.

1) Take out the cartridges

2) Unplug the power cord from the printer & wall.

3) Press and hold the power button down for 15 seconds and release the power button, wait for about 30 seconds.

4) Plug the power cord back into the printer and wall, ensure the printer is plugged into the wall & not into a surge protector.

5) Insert the cartridges back into the printer.

Remove the cartridges > Unplug the power cord > Wait for 30 seconds > Plug the power cord back in > Insert the cartridges

B) Kindly refer to the steps on this link to update the printer firmware and let me know if that resolves the issue.

C) If the issue still persists, uninstall the printer software by following the steps from this link and restart the devices.

D)  Install the printer software by clicking on the link again and let me know if that resolves the issue.

Note: Enable Bluetooth for an HP Smart app setup: Enable Bluetooth on your computer or mobile device so that HP Smart can detect the printer during the setup.

Please mark this post as “Accepted Solution” if the issue is resolved and if you feel this reply was helpful click “Yes”.

I hope this helps.

Take care and have a good day

Irwin6

HP Support

[annieg04]

I took every step below with no success. After following all of these steps it still failed to print so I also used the Clean Cartridges, Align Printer, and Clean Smudges tools. At the very top of the print diagnostics page I received from the clean cartridges tool it says "Ink levels are okay and should not cause print quality problems" yet the black is barely there and no color is visible at all. The printer claimed that all of the above were "completed successfully." Attaching the following images, all printed after completing the steps you provided:

1. Print Quality Diagnostic page

2. Printer Alignment page 

3. A PDF resume I attempted to print that is a full page of black-only text

 

[Irfan_06]

Hi @annieg04,

I am sorry to hear that the above steps did not help much but i do appreciate your efforts in performing the troubleshooting steps.

A) Refer to the steps on this link to further troubleshoot.

B) If the issue still persists, refer to the steps on this link to restore factory defaults and let me know if that resolves the issue.

Please mark this post as “Accepted Solution” if the issue is resolved and if you feel this reply was helpful click “Yes”.

I hope this helps.

Take care and have a great day ahead!

Irwin6

HP Support