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Printer Driver Issues and How to Fix Them
Network printing can be a major headache for both large and small businesses. There are a number of issues that can cause network printing problems, but printer driver issues are one of the main culprits.
If the correct printer driver is not installed on your machine, then the print file will not be able to be read by the printer. In addition, users may have trouble finding the printer they are they need to print from, or the printout can become garbled.
Printer drivers often get corrupted and have to be updated. Since printer drivers are different for each printer, it can become a nightmare trying to figure out which printer driver needs to be installed. If your business has multiple servers, then the printer drivers have to be updated on each server.
Common Network Printing Fixes:
- Restart the printer. Yes this may sound like a simple solution, and that is because it is. Restarting your printer can often resolve any power glitches and restore network settings.
- Restart the queue. Another easy way to resolve some issues is to restart the queue. Simply restart the queue and restart the spooler to unblock the queue.
- Test your drivers. Be sure to test the various available drivers in a controlled environment. This is a much easier method of troubleshooting then trying to fix the issue when you are in a production environment.
- Printer naming. Name your shared printers so it is obvious what driver is being used. For example, if the printer is a Laser Jet located in office 125 and is using printer driver 1234, then your name could be Laser Jet 125 – Driver 1234. This will make it much easier to physically find printers.
- Research. Do your research before you buy a printer. Check to see how the driver support is for the printer you are interested in buying. Look at the reviews to see if other users are having any issues with the printer or printer driver.
Hopefully the above printer driver tips will fix your printer driver issues. We offer IT Network Support so you can worry about running your business instead of spending time fixing your printer drivers. Contact us today to schedule an appointment.
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I tried all of the steps listed but I still couldn’t get my printer to work. It’s a really old printer, though. I’ll probably just end up taking it somewhere that can print in full color. Thanks for the article, though!