Printing appears to be a simple process of converting your business documents into crisp, new output, but the computer-controlled reality is far more complicated than simply pressing “Print.” When documents enter your computer’s print-management queue and then vanish without even a single page of the job appearing in the printer’s output tray, your troubleshooting procedures begin with your hardware. Simultaneously, your application files should be scrutinised for their potential role as symptom triggers.
Memory
When printers run out of available memory, the software that controls their communication with your computer exhibits similar issues, causing the projects you send for output to be stalled. The list of documents in your print manager should include all of the files that are currently being printed and awaiting output, but some of them may appear in the list and then disappear without ever being printed. This symptom indicates the need for additional memory chips if you’re using a laser printer with upgradeable RAM.
Printer Driver
The driver software you instal to allow your computer and its operating system to send data from your application files to your printer must be compatible with your computer’s platform, operating system and version, as well as the specific model of your output hardware. As you update your operating system, your printer driver may become incompatible, and as you use your computer, the driver software may become corrupt, particularly during power fluctuations or as a byproduct of malware that you’ve had to remove. To keep all of these resources up to date, visit the printer manufacturer’s website and apply any new updates that match your system configuration.
Project Size and Condition
Extra-large documents can cause printers to struggle with processing. “Large” refers to more than just the number of pages. Photographs and other graphics, as well as elements linked from other files via DirectX on Windows, can increase the data size of a file. Along with file size, document condition influences how well or poorly a file prints. PDF files with incorrectly embedded fonts, documents with traces of corruption caused by recycling files to create new versions of recurring projects rather than building a template that creates a new file each time you use it: these common scenarios can result in print problems in which documents disappear from the print queue.
Other Considerations
To test your files, determine which files are having printing issues and where the problem occurs. Until the symptoms appear, print one page at a time. If your vanishing print jobs are the result of a printer’s overloaded memory, you won’t see these symptoms if you divide the job into page-by-page increments. If you are unable to reduce the file size, printing single or small groups of pages may be the simplest, or at least the least expensive, solution to your problem. If a page fails to print on its own, inspect its contents for signs of corruption.
