ugly print quality (deformed text) - Brother HL-2170w

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I'm at the point of drop LMDE and switch to main version of Mint or another distro.
The main reason is printing. I print a lot and I want a perfect text output. This is the problem: I have a Brother HL-2170w, the driver seems to work almost completely (except manual duplex). But the print output is bad, the fonts appears not sharp-edged, with eroded or blurry margins. I can compare easily this output with the printing in Windows, because I dual boot and have the same printer configured there.
So, in short:
Bad print is not due to the printer itself (the toner or the machine). In windows the printing quality is very good (sharp edged fonts).
Bad print is not due to the program used: Libreoffice print good in windows and bad in linux.
Bad print is not due to the paper quality.
Bad print is not due to the font used (all kind of fonts look bad or good the same).

My theory is that this behaviour is because a misconfiguration of system fonts, or ghostscript. Or the driver is not the correct one.

I did reinstall ghostcript. Nothing improves.
I did reinstall fonconfig. Nothing improves.
I did reinstall basic fonts, like MS fonts, Droid and others. Nothing improves.

I did search in the forums for advices and I have not found nothing useful to correct this issue.
Any help?

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update. I partially solved this by changing the driver. I downloaded the driver from: http://welcome.solutions.brother.com/bsc/public_s/id/linux/en/download_prn.html#HL-2170W
This driver (hl-1250) is better, the print output now seems OK, almos identical to windows.

Persist some problem with fonts: for example Linux Libertine (the substitute for Times New Roman) print well in the "O" variety, but not in the "G" variety. Under windows, Libreoffice print OK Linux Libertine "G". I don't know why.

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Well, the problem is not totally solved. Even with the "correct" driver, the text output in my printer has some strange behavior: every two or three pages, a text line or two is deformed. Yes, deformed! compressed or stretched. Very annoying and weird. This is not a problem of the printer, this printer work ok in windows, as I stated previously.
I print a lot and I enjoy printing, for me this is a very bad issue. For a perfect print of large files (more than two pages) I have to boot on windows and print from there. Not a nice solution...

I used various fonts: arial, times, linux libertine (my favorite), corbel. But all follow the same weird behavior.

Update: I experimented printing the same file from pdf (coverted odt to pdf), this way the text is perfect, uniform, but slightly smaller. Why?!

so, resuming: 1 - printing directly from libreoffice (odt) result in irregular text, 2 - converting the file to pdf and then printing from here result in a perfect, uniform, text, but slightly reduced in size.

[chiefjim]

Have you tried using the PPD?

http://www.openprinting.org/printer/Brother/Brother-HL-2170W

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thanks chiefjm, I just tried that driver (hpij-pcl5e). With this driver, text lines are not deformed (stretched or compressed) but text is not sharp (looks "eroded" and blurry).
I installed again the driver hl1250. With this driver, printing from Libreoffice directly, text lines are randomly deformed when is printed more than one page. But if printing from a pdf file, text lines are ok. Text is sharp ad crisp.
For the moment, I would stay with hl1250, with this driver I can print from pdf well, but this is not a good solution in general. And, I cannot understand why odt files print bad, and pdf files print OK!

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I see you have the same printer: http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=51&t=107283 and using that hpij-pcl5e driver. As I wrote previously, with this driver my text output is bad, but text lines are ok in size. Am I the only user that experiment this behavior? Is there a rational explanation for this? This is really strange...

Is it maybe a bug of Libreoffice? I have the last version, 4.1.2.3.

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Update: I've just printed a large file (14 pages) from pdf and there are some text lines deformed. So, pdf is no a solution. Seems that the driver can't manage correctly large amount of text.

Also, this guy: https://bugs.freedesktop.org/show_bug.cgi?id=70658 show the same issue with an attach file, this sample of print is pretty identical to mine: a random line is deformed, compressed or stretched.

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Update: I've tried with another driver: Generic PCL 6/PCL XL Printer Foomatic/pxlmono. With this driver the behavior of the printer is almost the same as the foomatic hl1250, with less configuration options.
Also, I've tried again the hpijs-pcl5e driver, the text, as expected, is blurry/eroded, but in a close view there are some lines vertically compressed or stretched, as in the other drivers. How is possible that this serious bug is not reported here: http://www.openprinting.org/printer/Brother/Brother-HL-2170W ?

Is printing from windows the only way to have a good print output?

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I'm exploring another explanation of this issue: page size. I've just printed 5 pages full of text with no apparent line deformation. This is after changing the margins from 3x3x2.5x2.5 cm to 3x3x3x3 cm (page size is US Letter). Also, when I printed two days ago a large text in pdf with the scaling option on (large margins, reduced text size), the text was all uniform, ok. For some reason ( ) the driver don't like to print near the border, wants large margins. If forced to print with small margins, deform the text.
Has to be a problem of the driver because appears either in libreoffice as in pdf. And Libreoffice in Windows (with a windoes driver) don't show a wrong behavior.

I don't like to be the first to detect a bug, but I've searched the web for days to find a solution, with no results. Can anyone reproduce this bug printing with small margins?

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update 30/10

I've checked the default system papersize: was A4. I always use US Letter.
To check papersize in terminal:

Code: Select all

cat /etc/papersize

to change it:

Code: Select all

dpkg-reconfigure libpaper1

at this point, a menu opens and let to choose the default papersize.

I will see if this improve or solve definitively the print issue
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*edit 01/12/2013
I realized that even in windows there is this same problem. So, the conclusion is that this is not a linux or libreoffice issue. This is an hardware issue. The causes could be two, IMHO:
- dirty laser optics (easy to clean)
- incorrect gear position in the toner cartridge
I have previously refilled, cleaned and mounted the gears on the starter cartridge TN-330, so, probably, I did something wrong, and the gears don't work as supposed to do.

I will try to work with the cartridge and see if this issue disappears.