My printout has lines running through it. What should I do?

  • If your printouts contain misaligned vertical lines, you may need to run the print head alignment utility from the driver to align the print head. Your printer must be connected to a local port, not on a network, to use the Print Head Alignment utility. Do the following:
    1. Turn on the printer. Then load letter-size paper.
    2. Follow the directions for your operating system.

    Windows:
    Right-click the printer icon on your taskbar (in the lower right corner of your screen) and select Print Head Alignment.Macintosh OS 8.6 to 9.x:
    Open your application's File menu and choose Page Setup or Print. Then click the Utility button. On the Utility menu, click the Print Head Alignment button.

    Macintosh OS X:
    Open the Applications folder and double-click EPSON Printer Utility. Select PHOTO 960 Series in the printer list, click OK, and then select Print Head Alignment.

    3. Follow the instructions on the screen to print a black vertical alignment test page. You see the Print Head Alignment window.


    4. Look at the four rows of patterns in your printout. For each row, select the pattern with the two vertical lines most precisely printed on top of each other. Enter its number in the corresponding box on the screen.


    Number 7 in the example is the best aligned number and would be entered into row #1. If you find a perfectly aligned pattern for each row, click Next. If you can't find an aligned pattern for a row, select the best pattern and click Realignment. Then repeat this step.

    5. You see this window:


    6. Click Print to print the first pattern on the next test page.


    7. After it prints, remove and reload the test page as shown, with pattern row #1 on the right.

    8. Click Print again to print the second test pattern.

    9. Repeat steps 7 and 8 to print the third test pattern. You see this screen:


    10. On the test page, select the least grainy box in each column.
    Select a box for columns 1, 2 and 3. Then enter the number of the best looking box in the corresponding boxes on the screen.


    11. If box 5 is the least grainy in all the rows, click Finish.
    If box 5 is the best in one or more rows, but you need to realign other rows, click Realignment. This restarts the alignment process; repeat steps 6 through 11.
Was this helpful? Thank you for the feedback!
Was this helpful?
Please tell us why this was not helpful.