Arghhh!!!! Some parts are missing on printing!!!!

[nick/slickrenderer@adobeforums.com]

HI! I am in a strange situation that I have never encountered before.
I have an Epson 1290 A3 printer. Now I am printing an A4 sized letterhead on it.

For some strange reason every time I print then randomly the bottom part of the letterhead does not print. In page setup and print setup the page size is set to A3 so this is definately not the problem.
If I print the same document againg it will miss a different part of the letterhead and not print that part.
I made a B&W fast print and everything printed. Then I changed to colour and another chunk did not print.

I am lost!! I have deleted AI Prefs...even reinstalled AI 3 times. Reinstalled the Epson driver. The problem is with AI I think.
What else could I try?

[LenHewitt@adobeforums.com]

Nick,

Which version of Illustrator?

Depending upon version, have you tried toggling the Bitmap Printing option?

[nick/slickrenderer@adobeforums.com]

Len V.9 and 10.03

I uninstalled & reinstalled AI and the printer again.

No! I did not try the bitmap printing option. I have tried it now and thanks to your suggestion it printed perfectly both from 9 & 10.

Maybe reinstalling everything again might have played a part as well. Let me print again with the "bitmap option" off just to see what happens...waiting...

It printed everything...with "bitmap printing" off BUT the colours are different from the original copmletely faded !!!!!!!
The ink is brand new came with this brand new one week old printer!!!!

What the hell is going on!!! >confused :-O<

What conclusion should I draw from all this now (scratching my head!!!)

[nick/slickrenderer@adobeforums.com]

When I do the "print preview" on screen I see some parts missing as well.

[LenHewitt@adobeforums.com]

YOU'RE confused?! How do you think I feel? At least you've seen it
happening! <vbg>

(You may guess from the above that I haven't a clue what might be going on,
but could it be a memory/disk space problem? See also my reply to your
'Tippy the Turtle' Topic)

[nick/slickrenderer@adobeforums.com]

YOU'RE confused?! How do you think I feel? At least you've seen it happening!
<vbg>





LOL!!!!! :-)

but could it be a memory/disk space problem.




Couple of times when I launched AI I got error saying not enough memory. Even though I have 1.5 Gb with nothing else open and 20GB free on the HD.
I have lost 1 day with this problem and it remains unsolved :-O

Len can I mail you the file privately? The error shows up under print preview as well so you don't need to print anything.
This way atleast I will know if it's the file or my hardware/software that is playing up.
It could be that this file is damaged...even though other versions of this file display the same problem!!!
email me on- [email]slickrenderer@hotmail.com[/email] and I will mail you back. Thanks.

[nick/slickrenderer@adobeforums.com]

I am readign this right now.Anyway if I create a new file and just put random objects in it and print preview then everything shows OK.
That means MAYBE the file is corrupt!!!
Still testing...

<http://www.adobe.com/support/techdocs/11fbe.htm>

[nick/slickrenderer@adobeforums.com]

Another interesting fact.It only misses parts when printed in quality mode. On fast print it prints everything :-O

Anyway I identified 3 files that came from one mother file.
All the other AI files are OK. So Iguess the mother file must have got corrupted somehow.
Makes me very uncomfortable!!! Why the hell did it get corrupted!!!

[nick/slickrenderer@adobeforums.com]

Um I created a new file and now it's mising some chunks as well when I do print preview.
I domnloaded Illustrator CS trial version and each and every file prints flawlessly. That means all the files are fine and not corrupt!!!
Something has happened with my Ai9 and AI10 that does not fix even after reinstallation!!!

I think I will just go and buy CS upgrade!!! tomorrow gggrrr!!! brrr!!!

EDIT- I GIVE UP IN CS I SEE CHUNKS MISSING AS WELL!!!
I THINK THAT MEANS MY PRINTER IS SCREWING THINGS UP... MAYBE!!!
I don't know what to think anymore!!! Sorry for shouting I am frustrated!!!

[nick/slickrenderer@adobeforums.com]

OK looks like the problem is with Epson. I installed the printer on my Laptop and alll the files works OK and prints fine.

That means there is some bad Epson driver component on my desktop PC that does not get removed on installing and reinstalling the Epson printer.

I think I will have to manually remove whatever is causing this headache!!! Damit it's 4:25am!!! :-O

[nick/slickrenderer@adobeforums.com]

I AM LOST...this is driving me NUTS!! I reinstalled Epson again some time parts of the artwork are missing sometimes not!!!

Plus if the problem was with Epson then Photoshop preview should not work either but it works perfect.

Please any suggetion?

[nick/slickrenderer@adobeforums.com]

[nick/slickrenderer@adobeforums.com]

<http://www.nitindesign.com/argh.jpg>
<http://www.nitindesign.com/argh2.jpg>

[nick/slickrenderer@adobeforums.com]

[LenHewitt@adobeforums.com]

Nick,

Your monologue has not created any flashes of inspiration as to just what your problem might be.

I've only access to CS here (and no A3 printer) so I don't think seeing your files will help any.

[nick/slickrenderer@adobeforums.com]

No problems Len...plus the files themselves are OK anyway.
It's something else. The sample files that came with CS show up this problem as well.
Plus on the laptop I don't see this problem. Something about my desktop!!

umm!! Did a memory check as well. Memory is good.

That leave 2 option.

Otion-1- Chuck everything out of the window

Option-2- Reformat the HD and re-install everything.

[Harron_K._Appleman@adobeforums.com]

Nick,

Was the document in question created in CMYK mode? If so, you might try converting to RGB. Not sure this will make a dent in your problem, but it's an easy enough thing to try. (And, for the reasons Len and I stated in your "Tippy the Turtle" discussion, you should be in RGB mode anyway if you're printing via the Epson native driver.)

=-= Harron =-=

[nick/slickrenderer@adobeforums.com]

Harron tried that. NO GO!!
On the laptop there is no problem. Why on my desktop!!
The interesting thing is that it only makes things invisible somwhere inside the bottom 50%.
I have ordered an external HD to backup my files (even though they are on a seperate HD from the system)
Then this weekend when the HD comes I will reformat and reinstall W2k!!!
That HAS to clear it up. If not I am SCREWED :-O

Edit- What I am noticing currently is that when I have "bitmap printing" off then the preview is OK.
If I have it ON then the preview has chunks missing.

* ***** SIDE QUESTION- Why is there a colour difference between exactly same file printed with bit map printing "ON" and "OFF"

[Harron_K._Appleman@adobeforums.com]

Hmmm...

What's available memory like on your desktop vs. your laptop? Virtual memory (pagefile) might have to be bumped up on the desktop. Have you tried killing as many background tasks as possible? (Illustrator is a bit of a resource hog, so this might be worth looking into.)

Also, I imagine you've already seen this:

<http://www.adobe.com/support/techdocs/1a55e.htm>

Note that it's possible for a bad video driver to cause printing problems. Try turning off hardware acceleration, or try a generic video driver as the document suggests.

And I don't have an answer for your side question other than "it shouldn't be doing that."

Good luck.

=-= Harron =-=

[nick/slickrenderer@adobeforums.com]

Harron actually I did not see that one. Thanks something more to chew on...chopm! chopmp!

"When you print from Illustrator to a non-PostScript printer, objects may not print, or may print incorrectly."

That is a start atleast :-) back to testing