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Printing question marks in boxes

As of today, all my printouts on my HP PageWide Pro 452dn look like the attached image where every character is a question mark inside a box. This happens with PDF's and Word documents, and the fonts are the same ones I always use (Calibri, Cambria, etc.). It could be a Big Sur 11.4 issue since I just updated. Any ideas?

MacBook Pro (2020 and later)

Posted on Aug 2, 2021 5:26 PM

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83 replies

Oct 30, 2021 5:17 AM in response to RollerShoe

Saving an RTF and printing would work well for Word documents. I didn't even consider that.


With macOS Monterey released now, I'm curious if Apple addressed this incredibly irritating AirPrint issue. I actually switched to using the HP driver on my Macs, so printing is fine on those machines. Meanwhile, my iPhone and iPad print the dreaded boxed question marks.


I don't really care whether this print issue is the fault of Apple, HP, or Microsoft. It grinds me to know that at least one of them has the solution, and they're just stubbornly sitting on it.

Oct 31, 2021 12:07 PM in response to joe13liberty

RTF stands for Rich Text Format. In a Word document, you can save it in this format. This format does not support many of Word’s advanced features, but standard styles (e.g., bold, italics, tabs, indent, and more) are supported.


In Word, go to the File menu on the Mac menu bar. Click Save As. Find the format selection, and choose Rich Text Format. The document will save with an RTF extension (e.g., Doc_Name.rtf).


Word’s default format is DOCX.

Printing question marks in boxes

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