Text not printing with Black Ink on Canon i560

Question

Level 1

12 points

Text not printing with Black Ink on Canon i560

I've been having a pretty annoying problem with my Canon i560: When printing black text, instead of using the black ink, the printer mixes black from the color inks. This has been a problem for a little while but recently, the colors got a little offset so it became really obvious.

Also, I just received an update for the Canon printer drivers and according to the Apple page, the Canon i560 is supported and the drivers are actually updated.

I'm pretty sure that it's a driver problem because I can print from a Windows virtual machine to the exactly same printer all other variables remaining the same - and guess what: When printing from Windows, black is black, colors are colors, as one would expect with this kind of printer.

So, does anyone have an idea how I can make my make send the right signals to my Canon i560?

Here's the data from my System Report:

Canon i560:

Status: Idle

Print Server: Local

Driver Version: 10.57.2.0

Default: Yes

Shared: Yes

URI: usb://Canon/i560?serial=2089RX

PPD: Canon i560

PPD File Version: 10.57.2.0

PostScript Version: (3010.000) 705

CUPS Version: 1.5.3 (cups-297.9)

Fax support: No

Scanning support: No

Printer Commands: PrintSelfTestPage ReportLevels

CUPS filters:

Raster2CanonIJ:

Path: /Library/Printers/Canon/BJPrinter/Filters/Raster2CanonIJ/Raster2CanonIJ.bundle/ Contents/MacOS/Raster2CanonIJ

Permissions: rwxr-xr-x

Version: 10.57.2

Command2CanonIJ:

Path: /Library/Printers/Canon/BJPrinter/Filters/Command2CanonIJ.bundle/Contents/MacOS /Command2CanonIJ

Permissions: rwxr-xr-x

Version: 10.57.2

Printer utility: /Library/Printers/Canon/BJPrinter/Utilities/BJPrinterUtility2.app

Printer utility version: 7.27.3

PDEs:

CanonIJPDE.bundle:

Sandbox compliant: Yes

Mac Pro, Mac OS X (10.7.4)

Posted on Jun 29, 2012 7:36 AM

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Answer 1

PAHU

Level 6

16,717 points

Jun 29, 2012 9:42 PM in response to holtsch

With regards to printing text on the Mac, are you testing this from TextEdit? Because if you are noticing this result from Preview or Word or some other application, then this is due to these applications using registration black -which is were all colours are used for black. Due to changes with ColorSync your only option to ensure that you only use the black ink is from the print dialog of an application, change to Quality & Media for the Canon driver and enable Grayscale printing. This will stop the other colours from being used.

With regards to the latest Canon driver update, it would appear that this is in preparation for Mountain Lion's release next month. You can see right down the botton that the CanonIJPDE.bundle is now Sandbox compliant, which is one of the requirements for 10.8.

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Answer 2

holtsch Author

Level 1

12 points

Jun 30, 2012 3:08 AM in response to PAHU

Yes, I tried both TextEdit and other applications (most of the time, I'm printing PDF files). Both with the same result.

Where do I actually find "GrayScale" in the printing options?

I find "Color Matching" which gives me either "Canon Color Matching", or "ColorSync" which has a couple of options but no "Grayscale". Under "Color Options", I have Sample Type, the best option seemingly being "Standard" (at least that has some black text on the image; the other options seem to be more suitable for pictures).

Then there's "Color Mode", which has "Photo", "Graphic" and "Vivid Photo". Here, Graphic seems to be the best option. Finally, I have a couple of sliders for Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black, so I could put black up and the others done ... but that all seems really cumbersome.

With Windows, printing just works ... so I'm wondering what's going wrong here. Is this just an issue with the Canon i560 or Canon printers in general? Or printers in general?

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Answer 3

PAHU

Level 6

16,717 points

Jun 30, 2012 5:38 AM in response to holtsch

As I mentioned in my previous reply, the setting is located under the Quality & Media menu.

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Answer 4

holtsch Author

Level 1

12 points

Jun 30, 2012 6:24 AM in response to PAHU

Ah, sorry, I missed that when reading your reply. Probably should have re-read it. However, I have just made a test-print from TextEdit with the "Grayscale Printing" checkbox enabled - and I'm still getting precisely the same ugly, greenish result.

Then, I fired up my Windows XP virtual machine, connected the i560 to the virtual machine, made a print out from Word - and am getting perfectly black text (as one would expect).

To be 100% sure, I took a random PDF, printed it from Windows, then from Mac. The printout from Windows looks crisp, crystal clear and with black the way it's meant to be (and the colors the way they are meant to be). The printout from the Mac looks like some worn out greenish joke.

I can't believe that's the "normal" way of printing on Mac. So there must be something wrong with the drivers. Especially given that "grayscale" certainly doesn't give me "grayscale" but more some sort of "dirty, ugly greenishscale". So seemingly on some lower level, the driver sends some ugly mix of colors to the printer - instead of recognizing black as black and sending that to the printer.

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Answer 5

PAHU

Level 6

16,717 points

Jun 30, 2012 5:58 PM in response to holtsch

holtsch wrote:

Ah, sorry, I missed that when reading your reply. Probably should have re-read it. However, I have just made a test-print from TextEdit with the "Grayscale Printing" checkbox enabled - and I'm still getting precisely the same ugly, greenish result.

Then it is not working as it should be and it is either the driver or the core printing system. To check both there is alternate driver available called Gutenprint. With this driver suite installed you can create another printer queue on the Mac, this time selecting the Gutenprint i560 driver. When you then print and have the i560 Gutenprint driver selected, change to the Printer Features menu and then select the General tab in Feature Sets submenu and then set the Color Model to Grayscale. Does this work correctly?

And with the Canon driver, if you want to repair the colour offset, you can go to Print & Scan, select the i560 using the Canon driver and then open Options & Supplies. Then select the Utilities tab and click on Open Printer Utility. This will open the Canon IJ Printer Utility. From here you can select the Test Print menu and then Print Head alignment.

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Answer 6

holtsch Author

Level 1

12 points

Jul 2, 2012 2:41 AM in response to PAHU

PAHU wrote:

Then it is not working as it should be and it is either the driver or the core printing system. To check both there is alternate driver available called Gutenprint. With this driver suite installed you can create another printer queue on the Mac, this time selecting the Gutenprint i560 driver. When you then print and have the i560 Gutenprint driver selected, change to the Printer Features menu and then select the General tab in Feature Sets submenu and then set the Color Model to Grayscale. Does this work correctly?

Yes! In fact, it works perfectly even without using grayscale. With the Gutenprint driver, I can print a document with graphics (color) and text (black), and the correct ink is used all the time. Colors where colors are appropriate, black where black is appropriate.

So the question is: Is there a way to restore the Mac drivers into some original state where they work properly, or are those drivers broken and it's best to simply go with Gutenberg?

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