Problem With Color Syntax Printing To Canon i850 Printer

Question:

I installed a Canon i850 printer and now Studio will not print in color. With my previous printer, an Epson 480SXU, I had no problems. Adobe and other programs have no problem printing in color with the i850.
I contacted Canon and they were at a loss and suggested that I contact the developer.

Has anyone else experienced this problem?

Answer:

I am not aware of anyone else experiencing this problem. What version of WinBatch are you running?

Did you check all of the printer properties?

Have you rebooted since you installed the new printer?

After opening document check both all the Print Setup and Page Setup settings under the file menu. Might have to do new page setup settings again. Maybe both.

User Reply:

I'd already tried all your suggestions before posting. The print dialog shows the i850 as the default and I've checked and re-checked every setting I can think of.
So I dusted off my old Fujitsu dot-matrix, found a color ribbon for it, printed a page of code and it came out in color. Saved the file with a .bas extension and opened it with UltraEdit, selected "Print Syntax Highlighting" in the Page Setup dialog, sent the file to the i850 and it printed in color.

Not being snarky but who's problem is this? And where do I/we go from here?

Answer:

Oh this is one of those tough ones to debug. Winbatch Studio seems to print color on most printers. But then the printer seems to print color in most applictions. It would seem the application and printer driver do not get along with each other.

I would suspect the problem is a result of multiple issues and ambigiouity in the Microsoft printer driver specifications.

And still there is a possibility of local printer configuration issues. It works on various HP color laser and deskjet printers I tried it on, and seems to work fine.

User Reply:

I spoke to Canon again and asked the Tech if he would be willing to download WinBatch and try it with other Canon models to see if it is just the i850 driver that has this problem. He said he'd do that and report back to me, which was a pleasant surprise....

The Canon tech phoned me to report that he had no problem printing in color with Studio using the i850. I have to assume its something in my 98SE system after removing every reference to Epson from the registry and reinstalling the Canon driver I still have the same problem in Studio. I'm stumped.

Answer:

Anywhere on the way between WBStudio and the paper there is something that is eating up the color resp. is changing the color to invisible? or color to black?(greyscale?)

I often meet those working instance in the printer driver couplet (print color as greyscale). This was my associative idea.

Anyway, other mechanical/electrical failure seems to be possible too. Bad electrical contact between ink/printerhead and chassis, sounds interesting too. The copper contacts can be smooth cleaned with a toothbrush, don't touch, look at both sides, printer chassis and ink/printerhead cartridge.

Printer problems are sometimes very complex and tricky. Often it is paper or user, then the driver, then the application, then the printer internal itself, at last I would say the OS.

User Reply:

Your greyscale suggestion seems to have highlighted the problem.
I downloaded 2003J and it has the same behaviour but I did a greyscale print and the output shows the color information is there.
I'm running 98SE and have checked and rechecked all possible settings. I contacted Canon (Canada) and reported the results of the greyscale printing, for the first time the tech said it was a driver problem and gave me the Canon (US) Tech Support number. I'll call them later today and see if they have any explanation or suggestions.
As far as I'm concerned its really a Canon problem or maybe a Canon/98SE problem. Canon Canada runs Win 2000 so the fact that they succeeded in printing from Studio in color doesn't really say much.

I'll report back after I talk to Canon US.

Article ID:   W16172

File Created: 2004:03:30:15:43:04

Last Updated: 2004:03:30:15:43:04

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