Print Light
Of note in my case, printing black is dark/correct when I print a document through MW Word so the printer/toner appears to be capable of operating correctly. It's printing other things, like webpages, where the black is light gray. I've selected B/W printing, but black text is still quite light. So this seems like an incorrect default somewhere. Of note in my case, printing black is dark/correct when I print a document through MW Word so the printer/toner appears to be capable of operating correctly. It's printing other things, like webpages, where the black is light gray. I've selected B/W printing, but black text is still quite light. So this seems like an incorrect default somewhere. For Windows versions, you can also choose to print all non-white colors as solid black rather than in shades of gray. Reader and Acrobat Standard: Reader and Acrobat standard do not have a black and white print option. However, many color printers provide this option in the Properties dialog box (available through the Print dialog box).
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Problem Solver
Color Led Printer Vs Laser
Error indicators
EPSON Status Monitor
Running a printer operation check
If you are connecting via the USB interface and are having difficulty printing, the problem may be related to your USB connection. Refer to Correcting USB Problems for details.
If your problem is not USB related, troubleshooting printer problems is best handled in two easy steps: first diagnose the problem, then apply likely solutions until the problem is fixed.
The information that you need to diagnose and solve most common problems is provided by the printer's control panel, the EPSON Status Monitor utility, or by running a printer operation check. Refer to the appropriate section below.
If you have a specific problem relating to print quality, a printout problem not related to print quality, or a paper feeding problem, or if the printer does not print at all, refer to the appropriate section in this chapter.
To solve a problem, you may need to cancel printing. For details, see Cancelling Printing.
Error indicators
You can identify many common printer problems using the lights on your printer's control panel. If your printer stops working and the lights are on or flashing, use the following table of panel light patterns to diagnose the problem, then try the recommended solution. If the status of the power light is not shown, it is on or flashing.
Print Light Grid Paper
Lights | Problem and Solution | |
Paper out | ||
No paper is loaded in the printer. | Load paper in the sheet feeder, then press the paper button. Printer will resume printing and the light will turn off. | |
Paper jam | ||
Paper has jammed in the printer. | Press the paper button to eject the jammed paper. If the error does not clear, open the printer cover and remove all of the paper inside, including any torn pieces. Then, reload the paper in the sheet feeder and press the paper button to resume printing. | |
Ink low | ||
The ink cartridge is nearly empty. | Obtain a replacement black (T0321), cyan (T0422), magenta (T0423), or yellow (T0424) ink cartridge. To determine which cartridge is nearly empty, check the ink level using EPSON Status Monitor 3 (Windows) or EPSON StatusMonitor (Macintosh). | |
Ink out | ||
The ink cartridge is empty or not installed. | Replace the black (T0321), cyan (T0422), magenta (T0423), or yellow (T0424) ink cartridge with a new one. If the ink end error occurs after the print head moves to its home position, the ink cartridge may not be installed properly. Reinstall the ink cartridge until it clicks into place. | |
Wrong cartridge | ||
The installed ink cartridge is not compatible with the printer. | Use the appropriate black (T0321), cyan (T0422), magenta (T0423) or yellow (T0424) ink cartridge. | |
Incorrectly installed ink cartridge | ||
The ink cartridge is not installed correctly. | If the print head is at the home position, press the ink button to move the print head to the ink cartridge replacement position. Remove and reinsert the ink cartridge. Then continue with ink cartridge installation. If the print head is at the ink cartridge replacement position, remove and reinsert the ink cartridge. Then continue with ink cartridge installation. | |
Carriage error | ||
The print head carriage is obstructed by jammed paper or other foreign material and cannot return to the home position. | Turn off the printer. Open the printer cover and remove any paper or other obstructions from the paper path by hand. Then, turn the printer back on. If the error does not clear, contact your dealer. | |
Unknown printer error | ||
An unknown printer error has occurred. | Turn off the printer and contact your dealer. | |
EPSON Status Monitor
The EPSON Status Monitor utility provides status messages and a graphic display showing the current status of the printer.
If a problem occurs while printing, an error message appears in the Progress Meter window.
When the ink is out, click How To in the EPSON Status Monitor or Progress Meter window and EPSON Status Monitor will lead you step-by-step through the cartridge replacement procedure.
Running a printer operation check
If you are unable to determine the source of the problem, performing a printer operation check can help you determine whether the problem comes from the printer or the computer.
To print a printer operation check page, follow these steps.
| If you use the parallel interface, make sure that both the printer and computer are turned off. If you use the USB interface, make sure that the PC is on and the printer is turned off. |
| Disconnect the cable from the printer's interface connector. |
If you use the parallel interface, unlock the wire clips on both sides of the interface connector, remove the ground connector if necessary, and then disconnect the cable from the printer's interface connector.
If you use the USB interface, make sure that your PC is on when connecting the cable; otherwise, the PC may not recognize the printer.
| Make sure that A4 or Letter size paper is loaded in the sheet feeder. |
| Hold down the paper button and press the power button to turn on the printer. Then, release only the power button. When the printer starts the operation check, release the paper button. |
The printer prints an operation check page which includes the version of your printer's ROM, the ink counter code, and a nozzle check pattern.
Compare the quality of the printed test page with the sample shown below. If there are no print quality problems, the printer itself is fine and the problem probably lies with the printer software settings, the application settings, the interface cable (be sure to use a shielded cable), or the computer itself.
If the test page does not print satisfactorily, there is a problem with the printer. For example, if bands appear in the check pattern as shown below, this could mean a clogged ink nozzle or a misaligned print head.
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This one is kind of a hard on to always answer because there are so many variables involved especially when you are trying to compare output from two different printers or systems. The real answer to the question is why are you clients creating PDF files with such thin lines to begin with. Most PDF files are a combination of vector objects and graphics. The majority of the files we see where customers are complaining that they are not printing dark enough is because they were created with a very thin lines say 0.06 pts in thickness. You divide the points by 72 to get how many inches wide the lines are supposed to be so that works out to 0.06 / 72 = 0.0008333 inches wide. If we assume a typical monochrome printer at 600 dpi we take the width and multiply it by 600 to get 0.0008333 * 600 = 0.5 dot (pixels) wide. That's right, your customer created a file that isn't even a full pixel wide. Luckily this gets rounded up to 1 pixel wide but even at that it's going to print out very thin and look light to the eye. But you say it looks fine on the screen. Sure, because your screen is only 1900 pixels wide and most PDF viewers will display it as at least 1 pixel regardless of the zoom level. If you look at displaying a full D Size drawing in a PDF Viewer on your screen you are probably zoomed out to 25% of full size. Since the DPI of your screen is probably about 96 dpi we take 0.06 * 0.25 / 72 * 96 = 0.02 pixels wide. So in reality that line should really only be displayed as 1/50th of a pixel in width on the screen. Even at 100% zoon factor it should only be displayed as 0.08 pixels wide on the screen. If it is a case where the lines were too thin the best thing to do is to teach your clients to create decent files in the future. Assuming that they may be printed out on a 400 dpi plotter and you always want at least 2 pixels wide you would want a minimum line thickness of 2 / 400 = 0.005 inches or 0.36 pts. In our newer versions we have a Minimum Line Thickness setting in the interface. You could increase that to 2, 3, or 4 to make up for the bad way that they created the PDF file. For most PDF files a setting higher than 1 won't hurt but there are some PDF files where it may create different colors (or shades of gray), or gaps in solid fills, or extra lines in solid fills. The PDF spec is extremely complex and there are times where identical colors overlapping each other can actually produce a different color and when you artificially make lines thicker things like this can happen. Or hatch patterns made up of alternating lines 1 pixel wide could turn into a solid fill. But again for the majority of files a minimum line thickness of 2 or 3 won't hurt. Again as an Engineer or CAD User we don't always think about the downstream importance of things. CAD Users typically design on a black background where colors like Yellow for centerlines look great. Or on a white background on a computer monitor a light gray looks great also. But the reality of printing on a monochrome printer is that these colors just do not work. First let's look at the case where a 50% black (gray) line has to be printed out to a monochrome printer. Since they printer only prints in black the only way to make a 50% gray color is to drop out half of the pixels being printed. When converted to a monochrome tiff most software including our AcroPlot Repro will use a dither matrix to calculate which pixels get dropped out. Most dither matrixes will be at least a 10x10 matrix but to make things simple let's look at just a simple 4x4 matrix. In the matrix each pixel is assigned a percentage black that must be met for that pixel to be printed.
So if we look at the 50% gray line that is 2 pixels wide these pixels would be printed as black.
But if we look at the 50% gray line that is only 1 pixels wide then due to the matrix only 1 pixel is going to be printed resulting in it looking like a 25% gray line.
The color yellow converts to about an 11% black line or a very light gray color. Basically 90% of the pixels are going to have to be dropped out to create a yellow line on a monochrome printer. Again the best solution is to teach your clients or users that light grays and light colors just are not going to print well to a monochrome printer. In reality anything lighter than 50% for lines or text is probably not going to print out well. In AcroPlot Repro you can reduce the Brightness in our interface. The Brightness ignores pure black and pure white but all other colors and shaded of gray are adjusted based on a calculation. If you set the Brightness to -50 it will make the colored lines darker. It does not increase the thickness but it will result in more pixels being printed. Our AcroPlot Repro Enhanced Dither 2 pattern is also optimized to drop out fewer pixels in thin lines and text. Especially when you are trying to compare the output from 2 different printers you really have to look at what DPI you are converting the TIFF to as well as the native DPI of the printer. Most programs like Reprodesk you will define the output DPI of the conversion to TIFF independent of the native DPI of the printer. So if you convert to a 400 dpi tiff and the printer is 400 dpi then everything is going to print out as it was converted. But if you convert to a 400 dpi tiff and the printer is 600 dpi then everything has to be scaled up 150%. This is where things start to get tricky. A 1 pixel width line at the 400 dpi will scale up to 1.5 pixels so will likely end up being 2 pixels in the 600 dpi image. Where a 2 pixel wide line will scale up to 3 pixels so it's not twice as wide as the 1 pixel line was before the printer had to scale it up. It of coarse is far more complicated than this because in the scaling up you also have to look at the other pixels around each one and things like that. Solution to Problem 3.Try converting at the native DPI of the printer or at half the native DPI of the printer so things are at least a 200% scaled up instead of a 150% scaled up. |