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The printer has started to print a whole (A4 page) color background (magenta) when printing off black text on white paper, the whole page is magenta and not white. Any advice/help most appreciated.
Thanks for your help, Coldcut. The printer is a Dell 500CN / USB. OSX and Windows XP
I use it with a Mac and PC, the problem was evident with both machines. Been on holiday, when I got back I switched off all power to the printer and disconnected it from the Mac. When I turned the printer on again the problem was gone. Thank you very much for your help, that in itself was such a boon, and enabled me to stop worrying so much. Hope the solution to my problem will help somone else someday. Thanks for your help, Coldcut. The printer is a Dell 500CN / USB. OSX and Windows XP
I use it with a Mac and PC, the problem was evident with both machines. Been on holiday, when I got back I switched off all power to the printer and disconnected it from the Mac. When I turned the printer on again the problem was gone. Thank you very much for your help, that in itself was such a boon, and enabled me to stop worrying so much. Hope the solution to my problem will help somone else someday.
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Assuming you are using a browser have you gone to file page setup and uncheck the background printing of colors. otherwise we need more info OS , software application used, usb /network printer ,model printer any changes made recently. etc..
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Normal printer ink does not print white - it does every other color, just not white - if you really need white printing, you should contact a professional printing company, they can generate white printing,
If the cartridges are not HP brand, that may be the problem.
Try to figure out exactly what color the "grey" background color is.
If it is truly grey, the black cartridge might be the problem.
You can also try a different type of paper.
Some paper may respond to the printing process differently than others.
If you find that the background is a red, the scanner will have to be removed and cleaned.
These models have a tendency to collect red (magenta) toner on the scanner assembly lenses.
If your background is "Black" it's going to print it all black, change your background color to "Gray" and your machine will then print a gray background instead of black. Also note that when you print a black background your toner life expectancy will be no where your expected yield ratio is. Average yield is 5% for X (X meaning size of cartridge) amount of printed pages. If your printing a black background your utilizing 100% yield coverage. Not sure if this is the answer your looking for. However basic black and white printing with a black background will print the page completely black.
The help desk is right but there is a way around this problem. This printer is a color printer. The only way to print white text on black is to a program such as PowerPoint and create a black colored page and then use white colored text. You need to put white paper in your printer. This will cause the printer to use a very large amount of black ink and if the paper is too porous then the printed text will not be clear. Make sure you use inkjet paper.
Sorry, steve, that you are experiencing this problem.
According to canon.com's website regarding the i9900 InkJet Photo Printer:
Why color ink may be used when printing in black and white
Even when printing in black and white, color ink is used for the following reasons:
Automatic cleaning of the print head.
To prevent the print head nozzles from clogging, the print head is automatically cleaned periodically. At that time, a small amount of each color ink is consumed.
Therefore, although printing in black and white is performed, color ink is also consumed.
Color inks may be used to create black.
When printing in grayscale or on photo paper or when duplex printing, although printing appears in black and white, the color black may be created using the three (cyan, magenta, and yellow) color inks. Printers without a pigment black tank / cartridge will print black / grayscale will create a composite black using color ink even on plain paper.
Therefore, although printing in black and white is performed, color ink may be consumed.
In order to keep the heavy black ink from smearing on the page or in the printer, color ink is used when duplex printing to help create black text.
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I might suggest taking out the color ink cartridges leaving only black there, but some printers don't take kindly to this. So, you may have to further experiment with magenta, cyan, and yellow to make it at least seem b&w to your best eye's judgment.
This happend to me also and I finally found out that the printer uses collor cartidges for GRAY printing. The back cartridge is used for BLACK printing ONLY. So if the printer was short of one collor in my case it was magenta (red) the gray parts of BW prints started to be green!!! When I put new magenta cartridge to the printer gray was gray again...
this sounds like a bad black ink cart, or the fuser rolls built into the printer are dirty.
you can swap out a black cart to test that theory, you can also just print a single blank page (no text or graphics) onto a piece of glossy paper and see if there is anything there after its gone thru the printer.
if the piece of paper has stuff on it it had to come from the rollers inside the printer.
service required,unless your comfortable changing out parts in your printer.
The Yellow ink cartridge yield is up to 300 pages @ 600 x 150 dpi when printing at 5% coverage on A4 sized paper. The Magenta ink cartridge yield is up to 300 pages @ 600 x 150 dpi when printing at 5% coverage on A4 sized paper. The Cyan ink cartridge yield is up to 300 pages @ 600 x 150 dpi when printing at 5% coverage on A4 sized paper. The Black ink cartridge yield is up to 350 pages @ 600 x 150 dpi when printing at 5% coverage on A4 sized paper.
so it appears that what you are experiencing is not normal and you may have a leaking printer.
There is one thing you can check though, everytime you print, make sure that you are not printing at the highest quality option selectable as this almost certainly will fire out more ink than regular printing... choose a middle quality option or even draft option if you will be printing regular text.
One ovbious option would be to have a friend print it out. I assume that is not an option.
Some printers just won't let you print if a single color is out. Yes, stupid. Try printing a blank page. If it fails, there is no other option but to replace the cartridge or print elsewhere. If the blank page test works, this next option/test is worth a try... Depending on the app you are using, you can specify the color breakdown of the colors you are using. In your case, it is possible that the text is set to a rich black (4-color) rather than just black. If that is the case, to test this most quickly, make a new file, and create a new black (black2), set to 100 black, 0% other colors. Type a wor and set it to print in that color and try to print it. If that works, apply the same technique to your real document. Hope it works. I've been stuck in the same situation, and some printers will just not let you print if a single color is out. Good luck. DigiChick
This may sound a bit dumb, but believe me as a tech support specialist, I have seen it happen. If you are trying to print a document, what color do you have set for text? I had a lady who wanted the text to be white on blue on the screen in Word and instead of setting it with a blue background and "auto" text, she set the text as white. White print on a white background (paper) doesn't show up...:-)
Thanks for your help, Coldcut. The printer is a Dell 500CN / USB. OSX and Windows XP
I use it with a Mac and PC, the problem was evident with both machines. Been on holiday, when I got back I switched off all power to the printer and disconnected it from the Mac. When I turned the printer on again the problem was gone. Thank you very much for your help, that in itself was such a boon, and enabled me to stop worrying so much. Hope the solution to my problem will help somone else someday.
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