Printing: HP M479fdw prints extra page reading "PDF"

andrewperrin · 01-13-2021, 11:36 AM

Using an M479fdw with Debian desktop and laptop machines. It's worked fine for a while, but recently began spitting out an extra blank page at the end of each job. The blank page says "PDF" at the top, but no other text or image is printed.

CUPS printers.conf entry: "HP Color LaserJet Pro M478f-9f, driverless, cups-filters 1.28.5".

Thanks for any advice.

frankbell · 01-14-2021, 07:50 PM

My first guess is that the document has a blank line that runs over to the extra page. If it happened to me, for testing purposes I would create a one-line file in a text editor and print it to see whether the extra page happens with a document of known length.

A couple of additional questions come to mind:

Does the "PDF" appear to be some sort of header or is it in the primary text area of the page?

Does the "PDF" appear on any of the other pages in the same document in the same position?

andrewperrin · 01-15-2021, 02:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by frankbell

My first guess is that the document has a blank line that runs over to the extra page. If it happened to me, for testing purposes I would create a one-line file in a text editor and print it to see whether the extra page happens with a document of known length.

A couple of additional questions come to mind:

Does the "PDF" appear to be some sort of header or is it in the primary text area of the page?

Does the "PDF" appear on any of the other pages in the same document in the same position?

Thanks for the suggestion. It's definitely NOT the first idea - the extra page happens at the end of every document, no matter the length. It is always in the same, generic font (my guess is Times 12 or so), and always in the same spot. And the "PDF" only appears there, not on any other pages.

ferrari · 01-15-2021, 05:25 PM

Just in case this thread is of interest....
https://askubuntu.com/questions/1200...very-print-job

ferrari · 01-16-2021, 04:04 PM

BTW, please clarify which distro/cups version are you using?

Code:

cat /etc/os-release

Code:

cups-config --version

As you mention that printing was working as expected until recently, it may be that some small regression (following an update) is at play. For driverless printing, CUPS generates the PPD, interrogating the printer for its capabilities (inc print resolutions), so perhaps something has gone wrong here. It may be that a bug report is required to resolve this.

PromptCritical · 12-07-2021, 06:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by andrewperrin

Using an M479fdw with Debian desktop and laptop machines. It's worked fine for a while, but recently began spitting out an extra blank page at the end of each job. The blank page says "PDF" at the top, but no other text or image is printed.

CUPS printers.conf entry: "HP Color LaserJet Pro M478f-9f, driverless, cups-filters 1.28.5".

Thanks for any advice.

Hi, I'm actually having this same issue with this same printer and running Windows (I know, I know). I've tried printing a PDF from Gmail in Chrome, a pdf in Acrobat, and a Word doc in Word. All prints ended with an extra page with nothing but "PDF" on it. The text is top left justified, but doesn't look like it's in the header. This extra sheet wouldn't bother me so much but the PDF text wastes the paper and there doesn't seem to be a workaround I'm aware of.

This is the only place I've seen this exact problem mentioned.

ferrari · 12-08-2021, 01:01 AM

The OP seems to have long gone from this thread. You'd be better off posting your issue in a Windows forum.