color signature fading on mail merge on word doc.

[fanasa]

We have a MX4501 and a customer that does mail merging on word. When he prints it after about the 20th page the signature (which is blue) starts fading away and then disappears.
He can print PDFs and other documents all day and that doesn't happen.

Has anyone seen this before?
Tech has replaced the DV unit twice, Transfer belt, HV board and fuser unit.
It keeps coming back.

[OMD-227]

Does the remainder of the mail merge document print ok. Is it just the signature part that fades off during the print run?

[ESA]

Sounds like a software bug maybe. If you're able to print all day anything then something sounds a miss and I won't expect it to be a developer issue. What o/s are they using? In word there is really three ways to merge. Merge at the printer, merge to a file and merge to email. To test for potential software or print driver bug do the following tests and see results.

1) when client goes to merge. Use merge at printer option. This provents very large file from being created. At the print driver there is an option for colate

[ESA]

Too fast my fingers on my phone sorry to continue.

When they get to the print driver remove the collate option that MS puts in for small desktop printers. At this point word will send each merge by itself. At this point you should see the printer queue fill quickly. If you have a machine problem this is it.

2) second thing you can do if you want to see if problem is memory or how it handles large files leave the collate check box on and wait till whole job is spooled before it really goes at it.

In both cases you should be able to see print queue handle each way deceived differently. If you still have problem with fading with one colour then see if you can increase your toner flow, although I would tend to bet against it.

[fanasa]

yes, it's the signature that faced away.
Teh tech has replaced the DV unit and everything

[OMD-227]

I doubt this is a machine hardware issue. That small signature is not enough toner coverage for the machine to be all of a sudden low on toner density in the developer. This would occur if you were printing solid pictures only, before the machine would automatically adjust process control.

When you print, go into the color tab of the printer driver and select 'Text to Black' and/or 'Vector to Black'. This will force the machine to print text & lines in a darker color.
Also, in the word document, try right clicking on the signature image insertion, select format picture, and adjust the brightness & contrast of the image to something a little darker.

Also try just printing the signature image in another program by itself, say in Microsoft paint or Image viewer etc etc. This would rule out any issue with Microsoft Word (which is mental in its own right) and the actual image.

[fanasa]

This is what the tech sent me this morning about this issue. he went back to the customer and he tried to figure out what the problem was. He said the following:

"I had them take the the mail merge and do a select-all copy and past into a email. That wa sent to a different user in the office. That printed the same way. I then had what is NOW just Word doc put on my thumb drive. I printed it from my laptop over a crossover cable. First I printed 30 of just the last page with the color signature, all were good. The I printed the 3 page word doc after the 5 set (15pages) the color fell off then vanished..."

He is going to send me the file to see if i can figure it out here. But I am not sure what else I can tell him. I did give him all your messages.
Any idea?

[OMD-227]

So continuous printing of the single page with the signature works OK, but as soon as that page is incorporated into the whole mail-merge document the signature fades? Is that right?
If so, that definitely sounds like a Word issue, not the machine. Have you done what I mentioned earlier about the driver settings? Have you printed the signature image from another program by itself? That would rule out the image or show the issue is with the machine.
Has the machine had a full color calibration run over it? Is the firmware up to date? Is this the only document that this happens to?

[fanasa]

By the way, I got the file from the tech and tested it in 5 different model machines and it didn't do what he says is doing on their machine. so we are looking into a problem with the machine. I think he replaced the MFP, he ordered the memory and may be replacing the boot and program chips. hopefully that'll take it of it

[costd]

Interesting issue. I am new at this but it seems to me that it is a main charger or possible drum issue. Wonder, for test purposes, if you change the blue signature to say red - does it still happen? If not, I would look close at the cyan drum assy.

My idea is it may start with a good charge, then does not recharge fully (or possibly drains away)????