IBM 4230-102 IPDS printer is printing gibberish

If your printer is spitting out pages full of strange characters, symbols, or strange formatting, your inkjet printer drivers may be outdated, incompatible with your operating system or corrupt. Drivers are important to the proper function of your inkjet printer and it is best to check for updates regularly.

There are numerous possible causes for a printer that`s randomly producing blanks. The most common ones are empty ink cartridges, improper cartridge installation, and congested nozzles. Driver and software issues can sometimes cause this problem as well.

Printers rely on a properly formatted data stream to produce a page. Dropped or corrupted information packets sent over the network or through a defective cable interrupt the proper formatting of the stream and produce random output.

Current graphics sent to printer via Windows Drivers has `AUTO` encoding method. This can be changed in Printer Driver Properties > `Printing Preferences` > `Options` > `Graphic Options` > `Encoding`. User has options to select others like `PCX`, `RLE` or `HEX` Encoding methods.

Some the causes for these types of print issues are damaged print cartridges, the printer is not connected directly to an outlet, the USB cable is damaged, or the wrong print driver is installed. Figure : Example of garbled, illogical text, and incomplete printout.

If your printouts are blurry or smeared, try these solutions: Make sure your paper is not damp, curled, old, or loaded incorrectly in your product. Use a support sheet with special paper, or load special paper one sheet at a time. Make sure your paper meets the specifications for your product.

The union label, or “bug” as it is commonly referred to, is a term that originates from the fact that a tiny logo is printed on a product and looks like a little insect or “bug.” It indicates that printed materials are completely union made during every step of the printing process.

If a printer is printing unreadable text or strange characters, you may be experiencing a driver related issue. Download the latest drivers for your printer and install them. For a list of printer manufacturers and links to the driver sections on their websites, see our printer drivers index.

Some of the most common printer problems that most of us have experienced include paper jamming, slow printing, uneven printing, and wrong colour output. If you use your printer frequently, we know how annoying it can be to have persisting problems with the printer.

Some the causes for these types of print issues are damaged print cartridges, the printer is not connected directly to an outlet, the USB cable is damaged, or the wrong print driver is installed. Figure : Example of garbled, illogical text, and incomplete printout.

Printouts from Adobe Acrobat, Adobe Acrobat Reader, or Adobe Reader can lose some characters when a PDF file does not contain the fonts that are in the document. You may be able to resolve this issue by using the `Print As Image` function within the Adobe application.

If your printouts are blurry or smeared, try these solutions: Make sure your paper is not damp, curled, old, or loaded incorrectly in your product. Use a support sheet with special paper, or load special paper one sheet at a time. Make sure your paper meets the specifications for your product.