Troubleshooting print quality issues

The Print Quality Diagnostic Report is a test page that can help you (and HP support) troubleshoot print quality problems.

You can use the Print Quality Diagnostic Report to diagnose minor printer issues (such as a clogged print nozzle). Many of these are easy to fix yourself by running the printer’s maintenance functions.

Reports differ between printer models, but contain many of the same elements (a series of colored bars as well as printer information like model number, serial number, service, ID, etc.)

It’s also useful to have this report on hand if you need to call HP Support.

Please consult the HP Customer Care website for detailed Print Quality Diagnostic Report information for your specific printer model.

You can access the Print Quality Report from your printer’s touchscreen.

Here’s how to print a Print Quality Diagnostic Report on the HP Photosmart 7510 e-All-in-One:

1. Load plain white paper in the input tray.
2. On the product control panel, touch the Setup icon, and then touch Tools .
3. Touch Print Quality Report and the Print Quality Diagnostic Report will print.

Faded color bars on the Print Quality Report could be a sign that the printer cartridges are not working properly.

Jagged color bars could indicate that your printer cartridges aren’t aligned correctly.

If the printer and ink cartridges work correctly, all the color bars should be present, unstreaked, and uniform in color across the page. And the black text should not show ink streaks.

Here are signs that the printer or cartridges are not working correctly:

• Printout contains horizontal lines or white spots
• Printout is smeared
• Color bars are streaked or faded
• The ends of the color bars are ragged
• Jagged alignment appears
• Color bars are streaked with another color

If you see no defect on the printout, the printer and ink supplies are working correctly. You should troubleshoot other areas, like your printer settings, before contacting HP Customer Care.

Learn more about how to manually set your printer’s quality settings.

You can clean printheads and perform other routine maintenance tasks using your printer’s touchscreen.

If you see any of the above defects, there are steps you can take.

All HP inkjet printers have an automatic maintenance function for tasks like aligning cartridges and cleaning clogged printheads. But if you are having issues, especially if you haven’t used your printer for a while, you may need to do these tasks manually.

Go to the HP Customer Care website, enter your product model, and you’ll unlock a variety of how-tos that step you through a range of simple diagnostics.

For examples of how to perform some of these maintenance tasks yourself, see below.

If you are using a best-quality/glossy photo paper setting for plain copy paper, this could cause smeared ink. Learn more about manually setting your printer’s quality settings.

For example, if your printout shows ink smears, there are a few possible (and likely) solutions that you could do yourself:

• Clogged print nozzle. This usually happens when your printer has been inactive for some time. You would need to clean your printheads (see below).
• Misaligned print cartridges. Aligning your printer cartridge prevents blurring and produces the best possible printing performance.
• Incorrect printer settings. Check to be sure you have correctly set the paper type/quality settings for your printer.

Most inkjet printers have an automatic self-cleaning utility that helps keep your printer running smoothly. But if you haven’t used your printer for a while, you may need to do this manually.

If you haven’t used your printer in a while, this can cause the ink in the printer cartridges to build up around the nozzles where the toner feeds into the printer, clogging the jet mechanism.

Here’s how to clean your printheads on the HP Photosmart 7510 e-All-in-One:

1. On the product control panel, touch the Setup icon, and then touch Tools.
2. Touch Clean Cartridges and the printer will run it’s self-cleaning utility.

After you run the cleaning program, check to see if the print quality has improved.

Aligning your printer cartridge prevents blurring and produces the best possible printing performance.

Usually, you only align print cartridges after installing or replacing a cartridge. However, you may also need to align cartridges when:

• Characters are improperly formed.
• Vertical, straight lines are wavy.

Here’s how to do this on the HP Photosmart 6510 e-All-in-One.

1. On the product control panel, touch the Setup icon, and then touch Tools.
2. Touch Align Printer.

HP Photosmart 6510 e-All-in-One
$149.99

• 3.5" touchscreen
• Access to online photo libraries¹
• Borderless photo printing
• Auto-engaging photo tray

HP Photosmart 7510 e-All-in-One
$199.99

• 4.3" touchscreen
• Auto-engaging photo tray
• 25-page automatic document feeder
• Fax without a phone line with eFax functionality³