Printer Won't Print

There's nothing more frustrating than a printer that botches the job. The printer might completely refuse to print a document, or it may print only a portion of the document or print a bunch of strange looking symbols instead of the text or graphic you were expecting. If you run into printer problems, you probably have to do more fiddling than Nero. Look for the following:
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Is your printer plugged in and turned on? Make sure your printer is plugged in. If it is plugged into a power strip or surge suppressor, make sure the power strip or surge suppressor is turned on. If the printer has a power switch or button, turn it on. (Many printers have no power switch.) Does your printer have paper? Is the paper tray inserted properly? Is the printer's online light on (not blinking)? If the online light is off or blinking, press the On Line button to turn on the light. Is your program set to print to a file? Many Print dialog boxes have a Print to File option, which sends the document to a file on your disk instead of to the printer. Make sure this option is not checked. Is the print fading? If so, your printer might need a new toner or ink cartridge. If your inkjet cartridge has plenty of ink, check your printer manual to determine how to clean the print head. Inkjet cartridges have some sensitive areas that you should never clean, so be careful. If you have an inkjet printer, check the print head and the area next to the print head for tape, and remove the tape. Ink cartridges usually come with two pieces of tape on them. You must remove both pieces before installing the cartridge. Is your printer marked as the default printer? In My Computer, double-click the Printers icon. Right-click the icon for your printer and make sure that Set as Default is checked. If there is no check mark, select Set as Default. Is the printer paused? Double-click the Printer icon in the taskbar, open the Printer menu and make sure Pause Printing is not checked. If there is a check mark, click Pause Printing. Is the correct printer port selected? In My Computer, double-click the Printers icon and double-click the icon for your printer. Click the Details tab and make sure the correct printer port is selected—LPT1 in most cases. Did you get only part of a page? Laser printers are weird; they print an entire page at one time, storing the entire page in memory. If the page has a big, complex graphic image or a lot of fonts, the printer might be able to store only a portion of the page. The best fix is to get more memory for your printer. The quickest fix is to use fewer fonts on the page and try using a less complex graphic image. Is it a printer problem? If you have a standard printer that's connected to your computer's parallel port, try printing a simple file list outside of Windows. Go to the DOS prompt (choose Start, Programs, MS-DOS prompt or Start, Programs, Accessories, MS-DOS prompt), type dir > lpt1 and press Enter. This prints the current directory list. If it prints okay, the problem is in the Windows printer setup. If the directory does not print or prints incorrectly, the problem probably is the printer. (Many printers have a button combination you can press to have the printer perform a self test. Check your printer manual.) If error messages keeps popping up on your screen, Windows might be sending print instructions to the printer faster than your printer can handle them. In My Computer, double-click the Printers icon, right-click your printer's icon, and choose Properties. Click the Details tab and increase the number of seconds in the Transmission Retry text box. Use the CD that came with the printer or download the printer driver from the manufacturer and reinstall the print driver. To do this, plug in the printer, when windows finds it as new hardware, put in the cd and follow instructions or if you downloaded it, execute the program form your desktop and let it find your printer.