[Discuss] Printer issues

[gaf at blu.org (Jerry Feldman)]

In general I've found that the default printer driver selected is either
the hpijs or hpcups. The Gutenprint drivers suck. I'm suspecting the
printer although the color calibration looks somewhat ok with all 4
colors shown, but the rectangle with balls does not give me much
contrast. In any case I have tried all 5 drivers available. The
Gutenprint CUPS drivers just print B&W. The real problem where I suspect
the printer is that I printer the document earlier in the evening on
Tuesday, then I printed the same document later after I added a couple
of lines and it prints the magenta, but the rest is black. I got this
printer free a number of years ago and bought a third-party toner for
$39l. One issue I noticed the other day when I was printing my bank
statement, and the BoA logo came out B&W. I switched drivers, and it
finally printed it ok.

On 06/24/2012 09:25 AM, Blake Parker wrote:
> I have discovered the generic, i.e., Ubuntu, CUPS drivers sometimes
> work better than the other Linux drivers for some laser printers. I
> just use New Printer, identify it as a Network Printer, plug in the IP
> address socket and instead of using the manufacturer's PPD file I
> sometimes use the generic CUPS file for that from the list built into
> Linux and it usually works quite well with very minor exceptions.
>
> Good luck.
>
> -Blake
>
> Blake Parker
> /Associate Director
> Boston Linux & UNIX
> Cambridge, MA
> /
> Google Voice: +1.617.575.9385 <tel:%2B1.617.575.9385>
> Mobile: +1.857.233.1008 <tel:%2B1.857.233.1008>
> http://www.blu.org
>
>
>
> On Sat, Jun 23, 2012 at 3:40 PM, Jerry Feldman <gaf at blu.org
> <mailto:gaf at blu.org>> wrote:
>
>     I have an older HP ColorLaserJet 4500N. Excellent printer. But, last
>     month when I tried to print a Jet Blue boarding pass, it failed to
>     print
>     the bar code. I ended up printing it on my wife's ink jet. I also
>     mucked
>     with the drivers a bit.
>     The other day after I bought my mother her iPad, I printed out a
>     checklist for installation for her and my wife. The origianl checklist
>     has red, green and blue lines, and it printed ok. I later revised the
>     checklist, but both the green and blue were printed as black. My toner
>     levels look ok.. The driver I'm using is HPCups PCL3 3.12.4. I
>     also have
>     an HPijs, same version, and a V2014.200 Postscipt as well as the
>     crappy
>     Gutenprint. I just tried printing with 3 different drivers. Looks
>     to me
>     that the hardware is failing. One possible short term solution is to
>     shake the yellow and blue toner cartridges. The printer didn't cost me
>     anything and lasted for about 4 years, so I'm pretty much ahead of
>     the game
>
>     --
>     Jerry Feldman <gaf at blu.org <mailto:gaf at blu.org>>
>     Boston Linux and Unix
>     PGP key id:3BC1EB90
>     PGP Key fingerprint: 49E2 C52A FC5A A31F 8D66  C0AF 7CEA 30FC 3BC1
>     EB90
>
>
>
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-- 
Jerry Feldman <gaf at blu.org>
Boston Linux and Unix
PGP key id:3BC1EB90 
PGP Key fingerprint: 49E2 C52A FC5A A31F 8D66  C0AF 7CEA 30FC 3BC1 EB90