Vertical Bands or Lines Appear on Epson Printouts
Why my Epson printer is printing with lines in it? How do I fix vertical lines on my Epson printer? This is a common problem, especially with Epson printers. Today we propose solutions to the problem of printing lines.
GOOD SAMPLE
VERTICAL MISALIGNMENT OR BANDING
1. Nozzle Clogs
If there are breaks in the pattern, such as missing lines or streaks, it will cause horizontal banding on normal printouts. The issue is likely related to the blocked nozzles on the print head. Now we should run through a series of head clean:
Using the Product Control Panel to clean the Print Head
a. Make sure there are no errors on the LCD screen.
b. Make sure that A4 size plain paper is loaded in the paper cassette.
c. Press the home button, select Maintenance and press the OK button.
d. Select Head Cleaning and press the OK button.
e. Press the start button to clean the print head. You can see a message on the
screen during the cleaning cycle.
Note:
Do not turn off the product or open the printer cover during the cleaning cycle.
f. Select Nozzle Check and press the OK button, press the start button to run a
nozzle check and confirm that the print head is clean.
Using the Computer Utility to clean the Print Head
a. Make sure there are no errors on the LCD screen.
b. Make sure that A4 size plain paper is loaded in the paper cassette.
c. Do one of the following:
Windows: Right-click the icon in the right side of the Windows taskbar, or
click the up arrow and right-click .
Mac OS: Select System Preferences in the Apple menu. Select Print & Fax, Print
& Scan, or Printers & Scanners, click your product, and select Options & Supplies. Select Utility and Open Printer Utility.
d. Select Head Cleaning. You see a window like this:
e. Click Start to begin the cleaning cycle.
Note:
Do not turn off the product or open the printer cover during the cleaning cycle.
f. After the cleaning cycle, click Print Nozzle Check Pattern and click Print.
g. Check the printed pattern to see if there are gaps in the lines. If there are no
gaps, click Finish. If there are gaps in the lines, click Clean again.
2. Mis-Aligned Print Heads
This is also a common reason of banding. Maybe head alignment was never done on the printer or the printer was physically moved to another location. Banding from misaligned heads usually shows up as darker and off-color horizontal lines. Follow the steps below to align the print head:
Using the Product Control Panel to Align the Print Head
a. Press the home button, select Maintenance and press the OK button.
b. Select Print Head Alignment and press the OK button.
c. Select Vertical Alignment or Horizontal Alignment and press the OK button.
d. Press the OK button to print an alignment sheet.
e. Check the printed pattern and select the best one on the LCD screen.
Vertical Alignment
Horizontal Alignment
f. Press the OK button when you are finished.
Using the Computer Utility to Align the Print Head
a. Windows: Right-click the printer icon on the taskbar, select Print Head
Alignment. Follow the on-screen instructions to align the print head.
Mac OS: Access the Epson Printer Utility 4 dialog box. Click the Print Head
Alignment button. Follow the on-screen instructions to align the print head.
b. Follow the instructions on the screen to print a vertical alignment sheet. You see
a window like this one:
c. Select the pattern with no gap or line between the rectangles and enter its
number in the box on the screen.
d. If you can’t find an aligned pattern, choose the one that looks the best. Then
click Realignment to print another alignment sheet and repeat this step.
3. Incorrect paper type
Select the appropriate paper type setting for the type of paper loaded in the printer.
Make sure you loaded the printable side of the paper correctly for your product.
4. The bidirectional printing setting
If print quality does not improve even after aligning the print head, disable the bidirectional setting.
Windows: Clear Bidirectional Printing on the printer driver’s More Options tab.
Mac OS: Open the Apple menu, then select the printer in Printers & Scanners (or Print & Scan, Print & Fax), click Options & Supplies, then click Options (or Driver). Select Off as the High-Speed Printing setting.
5. Low Quality Print Settings
When printing on plain paper, print using a higher quality setting. Usually Print at least 1440 dpi.
We hope this article can help you with diagnosing problems on your Epson printer. If you still have any questions don’t hesitate to contact us.