Black text printing with ghost shadow

[sterveda]

I am using Quark 10 for Windows. I publish a monthly club magazine and recently, although the screen shows the image OK, all black text prints out on an inkjet printer with a blue, slightly out of register shadow, either direct from Quark or via PDF. Any black logos, rules, boxes etc print black without a problem. I set the magazine as a colour publication as copies are sent to some members electronically. The PDFs are OK on screen but the text still prints with a black/blue shading as above so the coding must be carried forward. The magazine is printed black for hard copies by a commercial printer. The PDF sent to the printer is sent as 100% black and prints OK and pages printed out from this PDF as a test on the inkjet also print black properly. All other text using other programs printed via the inkjet printer print black text as intended ie: Word or printing emails etc.
Anyone got any idea what has suddenly caused this problem? My printer hasn't got a clue (not that it affects him) and several other Quark users I know have been stumped.

[MikeWenzloff]

I have not experienced this issue. If this happens on all of the publications, I think it would take seeing an actual sample document and the PDF made from it (off your system in the off chance I wouldn't have an issue with generating a PDF).

If you ZIP up up a sample publication along with its PDF and upload it to dropbox or the like, then put a download link in a reply, I and/or others will be able to take a look.

Mike

[sterveda]

Hi Mike
Thanks for reply. I have attached a Dropbox link giving a cutdown version of the typesetting copy (original too big to email even after zip) and the full colour PDF and the mono version PDF sent to the printer. Printing out a page from inkjet printer from either the Quark settings or colour PDF shows the black/blue problem. Printing from the 100% black printer PDF copy prints black on inkjet.
Hope this is sufficient for you to get an idea of the problem. The black text should print black. Additionally the text does not seem to be very black on screen view. This problem has only recently happened but all previous Quark jobs get affected the same now.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/vxse0tmlmkg1s ... s.zip?dl=0
Dave

[MikeWenzloff]

Hi Dave,

I am not getting any "ghost shadow" with either the color PDF nor QXP. I printed to two different printers, one an inkjet and one a Xerox Phaser. I looked at the printouts with a loupe and the black text is simply black. Normally I always print from a PDF versus in-application, but also tried that with a couple pages.

Have you tried printing the PDF to another printer? Perhaps a cleaning cycle on the inkjet, make sure the cartridges are aligned, cartridges are not getting empty, that sort of thing if you haven't already.

Mike

[sterveda]

Hi Mike
That's interesting. I am only getting the effect on Quark text, not logos or on the page headers, corner marks, black boxes, rule dividers, photos etc. I have just printed out some forms from a black only PDF and they were fine, from Quark direct they had the shadow. Other programs such as Word print fine. However I will send a sample to other friend's printers and see what they get. I have used the cleaning cycle but can't see how the printer would be selective even within a form.
Thanks very much for your input and time.
I'll report back when I get the results.
Dave

[sterveda]

Just as an update on this printing problem. I asked a friend to print a page and he found no problem either. Which leaves me to try to sort out how my printer can be selective over certain aspects of imaging but only from Quark.
Dave