Why is my fax distorted?

I keep getting faxes with missing and blurry text and I can’t fix it with the printer settings.


If you receive one or two faxes that are distorted, it may be the sender’s problematic fax machine. However, if this is a chronic problem, then you’re probably looking at noise on the line. This is generally the result of a bad connection along your line. If you have a poor fax line connection, or if you use a phone line and someone picks up the phone during a transmission, you can end up with blurred or cut-off sections of the fax. Unplug the phone line of any devices and plug it directly into a wall jack.

If the text is blacked out or has bars running along it, you could have a dirty or defective glass in the scanner portion of your fax machine. Perform a test scan to make sure that the problem isn’t with your machine.