Can't print an envelope

Having troubles printing envelopes. Have Windows XP Home Edition, a Lexmark X75 printer and using WordPerfect 10, documents print fine but when I try to print an envelope nothing prints. I've tried using another program to print an envelope and the same thing happens, document comes out blank. Also, have changed ink cartridges and sometimes print will be black on screen but document will be blue or red on paper. This problem is driving me nuts. Could my printer be bad? Do I need to clean something? Is there a setting that needs to be changed on my pc to print envelopes? I just printed a bunch last week and they came out fine, now it's not working. Help!

 

I assume then that everything you print comes out blank, Like full size sheet?

Every printer is different, go to the file menu of whatever you are printing ( or printer properties) click properties and look for an option for Cleaning the print heads ( mine is Utilities). It will clean the print heads and print a sample page to compare if all have cleaned. You might have bad cartridges

 

I have tried to clean the print heads and the sample page that prints does not come out like it should, the cartridges are pretty new. Should I replace them anyways? My first post sounded confusing after I read it, I should have been more clear. Envelopes are the only thing that print blank, letters, cards, etc print fine. So would it still be the print heads? This probably is driving me crazy because I don't know what to do. It makes no sense that a letter will print out fine but an envelope will come out of the printer blank.

 

You should do this test...Put in a full size page and print what ever you normally print on an envelope.... compare the the printed text. Is it in the same position that the Enveolope would have printed?

But also you say your text is black on the screen and prints a different color, so you could have loaded the wrong color into the wrong slot if your printer uses individual color cartridges.

 

Ok, I did print a test page. I put in an 8.5x11 sheet of paper and printed an envelope on it. The print is so light you can barely see it and it looks like little lines not words. Also it's not blank ink it's almost purple or pink but like I said you can barely see it. Also, the black cartridge is in the black slot and the color is in the other so they are in correctly. Do you think possibly that since the cartridge heads were never cleaned after each new one was put in the printer that they could be severly clogged and the printer is bad? I just don't understand why a document prints completely fine and an envelope will not. It makes no sense to me at all. Any other suggestions would be appreciated. Thank you for all your help so far! Azblackhwk

 

For some (unexplained) reason, printing envelopes does not usually use the black cartridge, it uses the color ones (all colors=black). Even though you only want black printing on the envelope.

So if the color is out of ink, or nearly out, what you see is what can happen.

Documents on the other hand will only use the black ink for black text.

Have you tried a new color cartidge? (not a refilled one, that could also give trouble)

 

Continue to clean the print heads until the test page come out properly, if you don't notice a difference after the 5th try then change the cartrdiges for sure.

 

Ziggy1, Try to run some hot water on the head of the color cartridge. But as kiwiguy said you may need a new cartridge

 

thanks but I'm replying to Blackhawk, if his printer has not been used for a long time it, the printer heads could need some extensive cleaning. He just changed the cartdiges so they should not be clogged

 

Hi azblackhawk,
You can also try this to force the envelopes to use the black cartridge instead of the color:

Click Start, Settings, Printers and right click on the Lexmark printer. (If you cannot find the Printers folder, right click on the Start button and select Properties. Select Classic View and then OK.)

Select Printing Preferences from the menu that pops up.

Click the Document Quality tab and select black only on this screen.

Click on Apply and then OK.