Vista / Win 7 Duplex Printing Troubleshooting Guide

[stalks]

Whenever I attempt to print duplex, I get unlimited copies.

HP Laserjet P1606dn, Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008 R2 x64

Original thread is at http://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Other-printing-questions/HP-Laserjet-P1606dn-Prints-forever/td-p/308401

[Bob_Headrick]

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stalks wrote:

Whenever I attempt to print duplex, I get unlimited copies. 

HP Laserjet P1606dn, Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008 R2 x64 

Original thread is at http://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Other-printing-questions/HP-Laserjet-P1606dn-Prints-forever/td-p/308401

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Since you posted a thread just an hour ago with details the other thread is probably the place to watch for an answer.  I am not an expert in the Laserjet products and do not have any help.

[edrowden]

Bob,

I followed your directions and in the device settings the Installable options was greyed out as was the below in the duplex unit. I could click on it it and the drop down box, but it wouldn't let me change it.

Any thing I'm missing? It tells me that the current driver is installed, so not sure what else to do!

Thanks,

Ed

[Bob_Headrick]

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@edrowden wrote:

I followed your directions and in the device settings the Installable options was greyed out as was the below in the duplex unit. I could click on it it and the drop down box, but it wouldn't let me change it.

Any thing I'm missing? It tells me that the current driver is installed, so not sure what else to do!

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Try logging in on an account with administrator privileges.  If this does not help then please let us know what printer model and what operating system you are using.

[mhaim]

Last week, I bought an Officejet Pro 8500 Premier, and have experienced the same duplex problems as others have posted: increased margins on the 2nd side, regardless of software (Excel, Word, Acrobat, etc.).

Contacted the Office Depot warranty line (as recommended by the store, since they wouldn't take it back otherwise), and we discovered something interesting: making a 2-sided copy of an older 2-sided document (which had printed correctly) presented no problems. It came out perfect! So the problem is NOT the duplexer, but rather the print driver.

The O.D. tech then found a screen shot of a preferences dialog where apparently default margins can be adjusted. I don't see it in Windows 7 (he indicated the screen shot was from XP). 

I then installed the drivers on an old XP laptop, but still had the same troublesome results when printing 2-sided.

I'm at my wit's end with this printer - Windows 7 has been out for nearly a year and there's STILL no updated driver which doesn't avoid this nagging problem? Or am I just missing something obvious in this (or any other) forum?

[Bob_Headrick]

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@mhaim wrote:

Last week, I bought an Officejet Pro 8500 Premier, and have experienced the same duplex problems as others have posted: increased margins on the 2nd side, regardless of software (Excel, Word, Acrobat, etc.).

Contacted the Office Depot warranty line (as recommended by the store, since they wouldn't take it back otherwise), and we discovered something interesting: making a 2-sided copy of an older 2-sided document (which had printed correctly) presented no problems. It came out perfect! So the problem is NOT the duplexer, but rather the print driver.

The O.D. tech then found a screen shot of a preferences dialog where apparently default margins can be adjusted. I don't see it in Windows 7 (he indicated the screen shot was from XP). 

I then installed the drivers on an old XP laptop, but still had the same troublesome results when printing 2-sided.

I'm at my wit's end with this printer - Windows 7 has been out for nearly a year and there's STILL no updated driver which doesn't avoid this nagging problem? Or am I just missing something obvious in this (or any other) forum? 

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There are a few issues.  First, the margins for the bottom of the page are somewhat larger due to the need to hold the paper while printing.  When printing in duplex mode the bottom of the back side is reversed with the top, resulting in a larger top margin.  (If you watch the page printing you will notice it is printing bottom to top on the back side.)  

Second, on some models the driver supplied with Windows 7 does not properly handle the duplexer marigns.  I had this issue on an Officejet 6500 when using the drivers from Windows 7.  Updating to the drivers available on the HP download site corrected the issue for me.  What driver revision are you using?

Finally, it is not likely that the Office Depot support folks have the level of training in the 8500 that you would get by calling HP.  In the US call 1-800-HPINVENt, elsewhere see here for contact information.

I have seen several folks here have issues with the margins when printing in duplex mode but I have yet to hear specifics.  For example, when printing single sided what margins are you using?  When printing in duplex mode what margins result?  

[mhaim]

The driver version which came with the unit was 13.0. I accessed the Solution Center and it found a couple of updates to download, but I'm still having the same issues.

I tried a couple of different files in Excel 2007, and here's what I experienced:

When printing in portrait mode (no "flip up", but box checked for "layout preserved"), document set with 1/2" margins on top & bottom, 3/4" margins on left and right; 1/2" header and footer. First side produced 1/2" margin at top, second page produced 13/16" margin at top.

Other document, printing in landscape mode (with boxes checked for both "flip up" and "layout preserved"), document set with 3/4" margins at top, bottom, left, and right; 1/2" header and footer; also set to fit one page wide by 10 pages tall. Odd pages have 3/4" margin at top (long side of paper) and 7/8" margin at bottom; 1 1/16" margins on left and right (short sides of paper); even pages have same margins at top and bottom, but 7/16" margin on left and 1 11/16" margin on right.

I also increased the header and footer setting to 3/4" but received identical margins on all four sides as the first attempt.

I didn't re-try a file in Adobe Acrobat, but on the first go-around (portrait mode), even pages were moved down about 1/4" (maybe 5/16") from the odd pages, with every page shrunk considerably more than the 97% I specified.

I'm still believing that since the copy function doesn't arbitrarily adjust the margins, but the print function does, any "need" for margin compensation is being dictated by the HP software, not the duplexing unit itself. After spending $350 on this machine, I really shouldn't need to be going through all this to get my documents presentation-ready. (To make things worse, the only reason I bought a new printer was because the duplexer on my ages-old Officejet D135 wasn't compatible with Windows 7). Seems to me that HP needs to refine its compatibility with Windows 7, for a broad spectrum of printers.

[wardell1]

Hello Bob-I am running Win 7 Home Premium upgrade with Officejet 7410. My printer is connected via USB2 cable. I have downloaded the OJ7410 printer patch and attempted to install via the included instructions. My problem is after bringing up the Administrator command prompt,I cannot get any response by clicking on the cursor. This means I cannot enter the r blue bold command at the command prompt. Is it possible for you to supply me with this command? Thanks very much.

[Bob_Headrick]

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@wardell1 wrote:

Hello Bob-I am running Win 7 Home Premium upgrade with Officejet 7410. My printer is connected via USB2 cable. I have downloaded the OJ7410 printer patch and attempted to install via the included instructions. My problem is after bringing up the Administrator command prompt,I cannot get any response by clicking on the cursor. This means I cannot enter the r blue bold command at the command prompt. Is it possible for you to supply me with this command? Thanks very much.

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Try the following:  Click on the Start Orb.  In the "Search Programs and Files" box type CMD.EXE.  When the cmd.exe program is shown press and hold the Shift and Alt keys, then click on the cmd.exe program.  This will open an administrative command prompt, you should be able to type the commands at this point.

[wardell1]

Hello Bob-I have your duplex trouble shooter am running Win 7 Home Premium Upgrade with the HP OJ7410. The printer is connected to the computer via usb2.0 cable  I have had Win7 installed on my computer about 8 months with no problem with backside upside down printing until the last 10 days. I am in the process of installing your patch. My problem is that clicking on the cursor is not displaying the command that I need to continue the install process. Thanks.