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Why Do I Lose Part of the Right Side of Printed Documents?

Question: Win 7, 64-bit, HP laser jet 3300 printer. I lose letters on the right side. Not on everything I print, but on 10-15% and it’s very irritating.

Yes, I’m certain it is. Let’s review what might be going on.

There are two things I’ll point you at.

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The program

One is in the programs you are using to print. Make sure the margins and paper size are set properly. 90% of this kind of a problem is nothing more than the program having the wrong, the incorrect margins or size set.

They believe the paper is larger than it is, and are actually printing off the edge. What you end up seeing of course is it gets cut off before the end of the paper is actually hit because printers don’t print to the entire edge of the sheet of paper.

Double, triple check all of the settings in the program you are using to print. If it’s the same program always losing 10-15% of the right hand side, there’s your culprit.

The driver

The other place I would have you look (this is probably the other 10%) is in the printer driver. What it really boils down to is the “default settings” for your printer.

If you:

  • Go into Control Panel;
  • Look in Printers;
  • Right-click on your printer in the resulting display;
  • And click on Properties.

Properties contains a number of different settings for your printer including its default assumptions for things like paper size and margin.

It is very possible the defaults are incorrect for your printer and I would have you triple-check those to make sure that they are set correctly.

Basically, walk through all of the settings you find there and make sure they make sense for your printer and the kind of paper that’s in it.

Do this

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5 comments on “Why Do I Lose Part of the Right Side of Printed Documents?”

  1. I too have found that on occasions perhaps some pages or perhaps only one page will fail to print on the right hand side of the page. By a process of elimination I discovered that it was always when I was trying to print on the back of a sheet of page WITH HOLES PRE-PUNCHED (for putting into my file) so that the holes are on the right hand side of the paper. This does not happen if the holes are on the left side of the sheet. There must be something in the printer which sees the “hole” on the right and thinks that this is the edge of the paper and adjusts the printing width accordingly. It is exceedingly annoying but at least now I know this will occur and no longer use pre-punched paper for printing on both sides. My printer is an Epson Stylus. I have two ( an RX420 and an SX215) and they both do it.

    Reply
  2. Hi Leo, I have a HP printer all-in-one C310 inkjet.
    When HP updates their printer drivers they send
    and download drivers for serveral models of
    printers. I have drivers for laser-printers that are
    installed. IF you use an HP printer, go to the control panel and look at what printers are installed. Select the model you have, make sure
    it is ready. Then look at the printer setup. Mine is
    a photo printer. Pay attention to the type and
    size of the paper.

    Reply
  3. I have 2 new computers, using Windows 7 on both and a new Epson Artisan printer (wireless) I get perfect prints on everything UNLESS I print something that is a .png file from one particular web address. Then it prints so large, even if you go to where that is and decrease the size to 75% or 50% it still overprints the page and the margins are off. The print is too large and it doesn’t matter what I do. Unfortunately, the site I am trying to print from is our local courthouse and now that they are using png instead of .jpg, I can’t get a decent copy. Any suggestions?

    Reply
  4. I only experience “right column truncation”, when printing reports from a specific website.

    Up until the end of 2020, printing was perfect. In January 2021, the site introduced a “new improved design”. What a laugh – the new design was horrible, loaded with mathematical errors, and totally unacceptable report printing. The printer tech support folks blame the website, the website people blame the printer. VERY frustrating.

    Reply

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