[Chatan1979]

Hi all, I am new to the forum, but Im hoping someone has an idea of how to fix this problem.
I had an Hp1200 printer for a few years and it worked fine until it decided to stop printing in black. The toner was full, but black would not show up. Well, my girlfriend happened to have a new HP all in one 1401 printer that she has never used or opened, so I uninstalled my old printer and hooked up hers.
Now her printer will not print black. I have looked over all my printing setting and cannot figure out what the problem is. The fact that two diferent printers are not printing black tells me that this could be a software issue on my pC, but I am at a loss here. Anyone have any ideas?
Much appreciated!

[slipe]

I can’t think of anything on the computer that would prevent it from sending black to the printer. Are you saying that if you print a photo with something black in it you just get a blank space there or that text isn’t printing?

HP inkjets have a feature I wish my Canon printers had. You can restrict it to just printing from the black cartridge. You might be able to refine your problem.

In the driver under the Color tab select “Grayscale” and check “Black print cartridge only” or “Black only”. Print a page of text from Word or a program you know is sending text to the printer and not an image. If it doesn’t print you have a problem with the big black pigmented cartridge. It should also try to print a photo with the large black cartridge with relatively poor quality because of the low resolution and difficulty printing smooth gray.

Then try printing text with “High quality” checked under grayscale. I think it will try to print the text mixing the colors for a higher resolution – not sure of that. If you print a photo with something black in it with Grayscale checked and “Black only” not checked it will mix the colors to get black. If the object prints black you know the computer is asking for black.

If you print a test pattern with the printer driver you could also find out whether the large black pigmented cartridge is working. The grid and text are printed from that cartridge. I think it is under the Services tab.

[Chatan1979]

Thanks for your reply. Yes I have tried printing in only gray scale and the page just comes out blank. If I try to print a photo, it will print, but will not have any black tones to it. It was the same on my older printer. I wil try the diferent quality settings and see how that works. Thanks again for you help.

[Chatan1979]

Hmm. Well. Unfortunately I have not had any success with the above suggestions. Has anyone experienced a problem like this?

[slipe]

You might download the Microsoft Color Control Panel Applet and make sure Windows and/or your printer don’t have some odd profile.