Fix Blank IE9 Print Output When Using Generic/Text Only Printers

Some Internet Explorer 9 customers might have issues printing text right from the browser, especially when they use a specific type of printers.

According to Microsoft, Generic/Text Only printers can be impacted by problem described above, but the hardware is not at fault.

The Redmond company reveals that even customers that upgraded to Windows 7 Service Pack 1 and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 can come across the glitch, as can those running the RTM versions of the two platforms.

“Assume that you connect a Generic/Text Only printer to a computer that is running Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2. When you try to use Windows Internet Explorer 9 on the computer to print text to the printer, the print output is blank,” the software giant said.

The company offered some details about the source of the issue in KB 2584449, which can be accessed via Microsoft Support.

It appears that responsible for the glitch is a problem related to custom fonts and the XPS-to-Graphics Device Interface.

“This issue occurs because the XPS-to-Graphics Device Interface (GDI) converter driver (Xpsgdiconverter.dll) cannot set custom fonts in the printer,” Microsoft explained.

KB 2584449 is also an excellent place to get a fix for the issue, with Microsoft Support providing users with a hotfix.

As some customers must know, hotfixes are not designed for all Windows users, but only for a very specific subset.

In this particular case, only those who experienced the problem described above should go ahead and deploy the hotfix. Users will need to be running Windows 7 RTM / SP1 or Windows Server 2008 R2 RTM / SP1 in order to do so.

KB 2584449 will be included in Windows 7 Service Pack 2, and Windows Server 2008 R2 SP2 respectively, the software giant notes.