A customer reports that a text-only document prints with unrecognizable characters. The print preview correctly displays the document. Which of the following is the most likely cause of the issue?

Outdated firmware might cause various printer malfunctions, but it's less specific to character rendering issues when the software preview is correct, compared to a driver problem.

When a print preview renders correctly, it confirms the document itself and the application are functioning as expected. Unrecognizable characters on the physical print, despite a correct preview, strongly point to an issue with how the printer driver translates the data into a format the printer can understand, resulting in garbled output.

A bad toner cartridge would result in faded, missing, or blank print, not garbled or unrecognizable characters.

A corrupted document file would typically manifest in the print preview as well, preventing it from displaying correctly.