I've tried the cleaning and alignment already, and it's still smearing the ink, even on my letterhead paper (I thought maybe it was the cheapo everyday paper we use for unimportant stuff). What else should I do? All my stuff looks like crap!:wah:

Hmm.. several questions: what printer is it? Is the cartridge new (did you just put it in)? How do the smears look - like bands from top to bottom, or left to right on the edges, etc? I'll try to find some info for you...

It's a HP DeskJet 572C. The cartridge isn't new, and I'm not sure if it started when I put this one in or not. It's been doing it awhile. The smears look like the ink wasn't dry and the cartridge is dragging through it left to right as it prints. Its mostly little thin lines, but sometimes bigger.

I'm sorry I took quite awhile to reply - I'm not very familiar with HP printers - have much more knowledge about Epson printers. Maybe you could try cleaning the inside of the printer. It sounds as the most probable cause for smearing.. see this page:

http://www.hp.com/cposupport/printers/support_doc/bpd05256.html#P6_271

LMK if cleaning helped.

Thanks! i'll try it!

The cleaning is great idea - worked for me once!

All I could find was this:
http://www.komputing.com/deskjets.html#SMEAR

Good luck,