Printer printing symbols & characters

[ned]

I've tried everything from reinstalling, restarting, unplugging etc. m printer and computer. From my windows machine and from my Ubuntu machine, my printer will only print gibberish and symbols.

I have the HP Laser Jet 1100.

I don't know what to do....please help.

[redcow]

Try "cold reset" and then NVRAM reset.

HP 1100- While the printer is on, press and hold the Go button for 5 seconds. This will reset the printer.
To reset the NVRAM. Turn the printer off. Press and hold the Go button for 20 seconds while powering on the printer.

[MichaelTech]

Driver? Using a postscript driver for a non-PS file will give you this.
If the app you use needs a P/S driver , install it.
Just re-install both the P/S and PCL drivers.

[prntrfxr]

Definately a driver issue. Printer communication problem. driver acts as a translater between pc and printer. If they cant understand each other printer prints symbols and characters. Sometimes things get jammed in printer's temporary memory, especially if there was a long delay in communication. (Like if you sent a print job and didnt reallize the printer was off. When you turn it back on and by the time it goes through warmup part of the sent document gets corrupted or missing and you get funky characters.)

Follow Red Cow's instructions to reset printer to default conditions and clear memory. Prove to yourself its a driver issue by printing a test page from the control panel. If it comes out good the problem is unlikely to be the printer. Try to send a document from the pc again.

If you still have problems from the pc, then delete current driver and reboot your pc to eliminate any conflicts. After that, follow Michaeltech's advice and download new driver, install and reboot again.