Posted by snoopdogMs on 7/14/09 7:10am
Msg #295768

What will cause a printer to print gibberish?

I had a closing last evening only to discover within the package about 5 documents that had some gibberish in the place of words. Looked something like arabic! These were sent at the last minute as I was walking out the door for 3 closings and did not have time to scan thru the docs. I had to go to Kinkos with the borrower to print out the few documents as it was more trouble to come back home. Any suggestions here? My husband said I might want to shut the printer off every once in a while.

Reply by Julie/IL on 7/14/09 7:36am
Msg #295769

If this is what I think it is, then I had that happen only a few times before and it wasn't just a few pages. Most of the docs had this on them. Anyways, I found out that it is actually a virus that was sent with the docs! Its not from your computer, it was from whomever sent you the docs. Once they resent the new ones, there wasn't a problem any longer. I hope this helps.

Reply by snoopdogMs on 7/14/09 8:12am
Msg #295770

Julie, the docs within the attachment were fine until

I printed them using my printer. Reviewing the original docs at Kinkos showed no gibberish therefore I printed new docs to finish the closing.

Reply by MistarellaFL on 7/14/09 8:14am
Msg #295771

I had the same thing happen to me

with my Brother MFC 84860dn.
The fix was an adobe reader update.

Reply by Julie/IL on 7/14/09 8:53am
Msg #295785

Re: Julie, the docs within the attachment were fine until

Then that was different from my experience. When I went back to check the docs, the gibberish was on the actual doc attachment, so it was a virus on their end.

Reply by Ilene C. Seidel on 7/14/09 8:16am
Msg #295772

I agree with the Adobe update. They are probably using a higher version. Update and try printing the problem docs again to see if that works

Reply by PAW on 7/14/09 9:24am
Msg #295790

Corrupt PDF files

When the file was created, it is possible that the output file got corrupted for a multitude of reasons. Any time the file is moved from one location to another, file corruption is very possible. Especially during the email process. As an attachment, the file has to be routed through many different servers, routers, analyzers and host of other electronic equipment. Any noise spike during the transmission can easily corrupt the file.

If the file was made with an incompatible version of Adobe (or other PDF making software), it would (should) be detected and a warning displayed. An easy way to see what the target version is, is to check the PDF document properties, from within the PDF reader. The displayed results should indicate what software created the file, its version number and what the target version is. Even though a document may be made with Adobe Acrobat 9.0.6, the target version is often PDF 1.4 which correlates to Adobe Acrobat 5.x.

Reply by MichiganAl on 7/14/09 10:53am
Msg #295804

Had it happen many times

If it printed correctly at Kinkos, then it wasn't the file itself. I can't explain WHY it happens, but I can tell you that when it has happened to me, simply closing the file and reopening again, or restarting my computer and printer has alleviated the glitch 99% of the time.