If users of various equipment were asked which device most often had problems, many would point to a printer. Unfortunately, this device is not the most reliable of all available. With it often malfunctions, errors and failures occur.
Many people face the fact that the printer does not print. What to do, not everyone knows. Someone immediately begins to sin on the device itself, someone on the computer. As practice shows, neither a printer nor a PC in most cases have anything to do with it.
Problem
You noticed that the printer does not print what to do - you do not know. It is important to stop panicking and take a closer look at the device.
First, remember if the printer made any sounds. Secondly, check if the indicators on it are on. Thirdly, see if there are any obvious damage to the device.
It is clear that the printer can be both at home and in the office. For various reasons, they could accidentally disconnect, knock or tear off the cable. If repairs occurred, the power may have been damaged, or building materials may have got into the device itself.
All this is important to check at the first stage, since there can be many reasons that the printer does not print. What to do next?
Check
If the external examination did not give any results, you will have to take a closer look. Suppose you just did not plug the printer into a power outlet. In this case, it will not print, it won’t even turn on, so the indicators will inform you about it.
There is an option that the printer is connected to the mains, but the wire connecting the device to the PC is pulled out. In this case, the command that the computer sends to the device will not be received.
By the way, usually, if there really is no problem with the printer, then when it is turned on, it starts to buzz and the indicators light up. If you saw such a symptom, then the problems are different.
Device visibility
You turned on the computer, then connected the printer. We went into a text editor, selected the desired document. The printer does not print, what should I do?
Immediately you need to see if the system sees it. To do this, pay attention to the icons in the lower right corner of the desktop (in the tray). There, together with an indication of the date and time, the selected language, connected to the Internet, the active printer is also indicated. If the device is really connected, you will notice a corresponding icon.
If you notice that this icon is not there, or there are some warning messages next to it, then you will need to consider the issue of drivers.
Driver Verification
A printer is a device that always requires the installation of drivers. Without them, it simply will not work or will do it inferiorly. If everything was okay with the device before the breakdown, it worked correctly and answered PC tasks, so there were some malfunctions in the system.
Usually, if the necessary software was previously installed, a driver failure can be associated with unplanned updates or crashes in the operating system. If the printer does not print from a computer, what should I do? Remember if you recently installed drivers for another device. Perhaps the two devices are in conflict with each other, which is why a similar failure occurs. You will also have to check the system for viruses, as some malicious programs can violate the integrity of the driver files, and therefore the printer’s performance.
First, check the health of the "firewood". To do this, click "Start", select "Control Panel" and find in the list of "Device Manager". A new dialog box displays all the components that are connected to the computer. Find the printer here. It can be defined here as a “print device” or “print queue”.
Having opened this section, we find the name of our printer. Here, by the way, scanners or MFPs can also be displayed if they are connected to a PC. Therefore, you need to immediately understand which device to look for.
If there are problems with the drivers, there will be an exclamation mark next to the printer name. It usually appears if the printer does not print. What to do? You can try to click RMB on this line and select the “Update Driver” command. This is not always an effective operation, so if it has not yielded results, you can try removing the drivers.
The computer will remove from the system all software associated with this device. Therefore, you will need to download the software again.
Driver Installation
In general, many users are advised not to check anything and reinstall the drivers immediately if the Epson printer does not print. What to do in this case?
It is better, of course, not to cut off the shoulder and try to consider all the possible causes of this problem. There is a chance that it can be solved with one click. If you still can’t cope with this, then removing the driver will have to download new ones. Where to get them?
In the box with the printer, you can find a special disk with all the necessary software. If he is, this is the most successful way out of the situation. The problem can only be if the PC does not have a drive. Then you can try through a third-party computer that plays optical discs, transfer all the information to a USB flash drive.
Driver installation is almost automatic. Firmware independently downloads the necessary files, sometimes telling the user what to do.
If you did not find the drive, you will have to look for the right drivers on the Internet. If you have a printer of a popular manufacturer, then this is not difficult to do. On official sites, all the necessary files are easy to find. You only need to know the printer model and version of your operating system.
Settings
If you notice that your HP LaserJet printer is not printing, what should I do? As with any other device model, you need to check the settings. If the problem occurred in an office with several printing machines, it could happen that the wrong printer was selected in the settings.
It is also worth remembering that in Windows there are virtual devices that have nothing to do with real ones. But they can be set to print priority, which is why your device will not receive the necessary commands.
If you use Microsoft Word, take a close look at the print settings. To do this, you need to choose not “Quick Print”, but “Print”. Thus, the program does not automatically select the printer, but allows you to configure everything.
Here at the very top is the name of the device. If you click on the arrow, a list opens. In it, you will notice two virtual machines: Fax and Microsoft XPS Document Writer. The third is just your printer. It is better every time to ensure that the right device is selected here, otherwise the system will send a document to non-existent devices.
In queue
Another problem is a print hang in the queue. A fairly common case, when users decided to print many documents at once, or before turning off the PC, they sent the file to print, but interrupted this process. Very heavy files that have not only text but also pictures are also in the queue.
To prevent such problems from interfering, you should periodically clear this queue. It has its own tray icon, next to the connected printer and other icons.
You need to click RMB on it and go to a new dialog box. Here you will notice that there are several documents: there can be from 2 to several hundred, it all depends on how multi-tasking the printer is and how many people work with it. All files have their own names. You can select one of them and remove it from the queue. Immediately you can cancel the print or repeat it. If the printer does not want to execute the last commands, it means that it is really overloaded. It is better to delete the entire queue and start working with files again.
If suddenly you did not find the tray or the queue icon, you can get there through the menu "Device and Printers". It is located in the "Start". Find the printer in the list and click RMB. The first item will be “View Print Queue.”
Cartridges
Your printer may not print in black. What to do in this case? Check the cartridges right away. Moreover, you need to do this if you have not used the device for a long time. Cartridges, unfortunately, quickly dry out and cannot be restored without long attention to them. In this case, you have to go to the store for new ones.
The printer does not print in black, what should I do? Someone thinks that since the device copes with color pictures, but cannot with black text, then it’s not a matter of cartridges. But this is exactly the case when you can be sure that the printer is working, since it prints in color.
Of course, you can try preventative measures that will warm up the cartridge and it will start printing again. Such a procedure is in every proprietary software that comes with the printer together. If you have toner, many recommend getting it out and gently brushing it. Powder is distributed throughout the cartridge and the printing process resumes.
Paper
The problem may be due to missing or jammed paper. Of course, the system often notifies us of such problems. Sometimes there are alarm indicators that there is no paper in the tray. It also happens that we do not immediately notice such an incident.
Jams occur for various reasons. It is very rare when the printer itself is to blame. Jams can be caused by poor-quality paper or reprinted. Perhaps the sheet was unevenly placed in the tray or had some rumpled sides and bent corners.
If paper is jammed, stop printing and pull it very slowly. The roller that transports the sheet is quite malleable. The main thing is not to make sudden movements, otherwise you can either harm the mechanism itself or tear off the sheet so that a small piece remains. It will not be easy to get it.
If you cannot pull the edge of the paper, you will have to open the printer and take it apart a little. Depending on the model, you may need to get a cartridge.
Stripes
Other problems happen, for example, the printer prints with stripes. What to do? This is a very common printing defect that all users will encounter sooner or later.
If an inkjet printer is installed at home or in the office, the reasons may be as follows:
- low ink
- ink began to dry inside the print head;
- there is air in the print head;
- problems with the loop and the performance of the print head.
To check the amount of ink, just go to the proprietary software and analyze the cartridges. You can immediately start the print head cleaning procedure. The company software has all the necessary software services that help to establish the correct operation of the printer. If all else fails, you will have to carry the device to a service center.
Red tone
It also happens that the printer prints in red. What to do? The main reason for this problem is incorrect color rendering. Here it is worthwhile to understand by what principle color printing works.
The printer has two cartridges: with black ink and color. In the second cartridge, cyan, yellow, and magenta are usually mixed. Depending on their dosage, it turns out to reproduce the desired shades. When one of these colors ends, similar problems occur.
First you need to check the paint level. After that, diagnose through proprietary software and all recommended procedures. All this should help in this matter. If the problem persists, you can buy a new color cartridge or go to a service center.