Improve Print Quality on a Brother Laser Printer

Summary: If you are experiencing a print quality issue with your Brother laser printer, here are a few things you can try to resolve the issue.

If you are experiencing a print quality issue with your Brother laser printer, here are a few things you can try to resolve the issue.

Print Density (Adjusting the Print Darkness)

Print density is the setting which will change the darkness or intensity of the printout.

If you are not happy with the darkness of the black for example on a Brother Mono Laser, then try changing the print density level to maximum which results in a much darker, clearer printout.

Here how to change the darkness setting:

1. Go to Control Panel > Hardware and Sound > Devices and Printers
2. Right click on your printer and select Printing Preferences
3. Click on Advanced > Other Print Options > Density Adjustment
4. Set the slider to Darkest

You should immediately see the print quality darken and become much darker.

Improve Print Output (Stop Toner from Rubbing Off)

Have you ever encountered the issue with the toner rubbing off of the page?

Believe it or not, this is quite a common issue and there are many factors involved that cause to this happening.

Often when printing on labels or thicker paper the toner does not burn onto the page enough which results in it easily rubbing off.

This can be easily resolved and there are a couple of settings that you can adjust to fix the problem.

Here’s how to change the Improve Print Output:

1. Go to Control Panel > Hardware and Sound > Devices and Printers
2. Right click on your printer and select Printing Preferences
3. Click on Advanced > Other Print Options > Improve Toner Fixing
4. Select Improve Toner Fixing
5. Click OK > Apply

Once this changed this setting you should notice an improvement on how well the toner sticks to the paper or labels, however if you are still not satisfied with how well it is sticking to the paper you can also change other settings to improve the adhesion even more.

Media Type (Select Paper Thickness)

If you are still wanting to burn the toner onto the paper or labels even harder, then you can make adjustments to the print media by selecting a thicker paper setting.

What this will do is slow down the speed at which the printing occurs which in turn burns the toner powder harder onto the print medium.

The only drawback is the fact that it will slow down the print speed considerably, however if should definitely stop the toner from rubbing off altogether.

Here’s how you can change this setting:

1. Go to Control Panel > Hardware and Sound > Devices and Printers
2. Right click on your printer and select Printing Preferences
3. Stay on Basic and under Media Type, select Think Paper
4. Click OK > Apply

When you print now you will notice that by selecting the Thick Paper setting that the print speed has slowed considerably, which allows the printer to bake the toner powder much harder onto the paper.

You can leave the setting like this if you are not bothered about the slow print speed or you can simply adjust it only when you are printing labels etc.

By changing this setting, you should find that the toner is almost impossible now to rub off and it does help with printing eParcel labels.

Clean the Drum Unit

Are your printouts spotted or contaminated? It could be that your drum unit needs a good clean.

If you have dots or print defects repeated at equal distances vertically up the page, then the drum is most likely at fault.

Remove the drum unit from the machine, release the toner from the drum and then using a lint free cloth clean the entire drum roller surface or at least clean any contamination that is visible.

You can use some Mentholated Spirits or Isopropyl Alcohol on the cloth to help remove the contamination but NEVER use anything that will leave an oily residue on the roller.

When re-installing always move the “Corona wire” ( usually has a green knob ) back and forth several times to make sure it is clean and ALWAYS make sure it rests in the correct position, fully to the correct side.

Fixing a Dirty or Gray Background

A very common issue with Brother Laser printers is a printout with a dirty or grayish background which is usually caused by a faulty toner.

Often low-grade compatible toners have a poor or faulty wiper blade which means that any excess toner on the roller does not get removed completely and so ends up being transferred to the drum unit resulting in a dirty background, the only solution to this is to change the toner.

When you change the toner, you may also need to clean the drum unit to restore a clean print quality.