I cannot print in color even though I can print

Greyscale is color not black only.
You can print in black and it will look grayscale only darker, printers are a pain to work with after a year has gone by, I can expect almost a half hour to print something with my $400 epson because one of the colors is out even though I never printed in the last year a colored page. I take the color cartirges out and they are empty, but I only print a page 2-3 times a year. I use the scanner all the time. Brother and epson have their print heads in the printer not the cartridge so make sure your inks are always have something in it or it will be miricle for the printer to last more than a year. Check colors every other week. One Epson printer only lasted 3 months because I never used it(print head dried up). Never use the set up with tubes running outside printer to small tanks of ink if you only use it occationally.

Worn print head. And for what they charge for a stinking print head you can get a new printer for less with a warranty to boot!

Try doing a printer head alignment, sounds like the printer heads are overlapping causing the banding.
Screen colors also never match perfectly to the print either, whist your monitor can produce millions of colors, the printer can only do some many.

printer is probably too old . buy a new one

or just print everything out in blue or sumtin other than black.

(thats what i do when my black ink is out)

are you sure you've attached a colored print cartridge? Because if you don't have a colored print cartridge, the printer won't print out colored documents. OR, if you DO HAVE a colored cartridge, check if it still has ink. Have it refilled if it's got none. OR... if you got a cartridge, and has ink in it, the settings of the printer itself might be set to: black and white or greyscale. You can change this setting at the settings, though! good luck!

Check the ink lines, the printer head might be clogged, If thats not fixing anything then check your printer settings on the computer and remove the color option. Changing it to black and white can somtimes just be from color, not just black.

start
control panel
printer and fax
right click your printer, choose properties
go tab by tab and look for print quality and then try
something like this
choose econo mode, or ink saving mode to start.

try to print in grayscale mode and use only the black ink cartridge.

that should be your new default, and you don~t have to change it from winthin other programs

one color of your cartridge were finished, replace/refill the cartridge again

even though you have ink coming out of the cartridge, if it's more than a few months since it's pumped any ink, it can be clogged internally, blotting with paper doesnt always work. Try a new cartridge, or buy a new printer, it's usually cheaper now to get a whole new printer than it is to replace a set of cartridges. consider it's a few years old now

Chewbacca08's solution gave me an idea. I set the print setting to photos paper (even though I was trying to print on plain paper) and IT WORKED. It's worth a shot before you trash a perfectly good printer.