Why does quick print only yield a blank page?

Definitely a problem. The printer may be putting ink into the waste ink pad. When that\'s full your printer will need a new WIP which is a pain to change. I recommend getting another printer. I have be using Epson printers for the last 17 years with little to no problems. BTW, I purchase Refurbished from the Epson website. See Clearance and wait for a bargain.

Please follow the steps below on how to print using black ink only on your Lexmark S305 printer:
For Windows:

1. With your document/file open, click File.
2. Click Print.
3. Click Printing Preferences/ Properties.
4. In the Lexmark S300 Series Printing Preferences window, select print using black ink only.
5. Click OK to save the settings.
6. Click Ok again to print your file.

For Mac operating system:

1. With your document/file open, click File.
2. Click Print.
3. Expand the arrow pointing down beside printer name if you're not able to see other options for printing. Look for Quality and Media in a drop down box and select print in black and white.

If you wish to set this as your default print setting, please follow steps below:
For Windows:

1. Go to Control Panel.
2. Open Printers and Faxes.
3. Right-click on Lexmark S300 Series print object and click on Properties.
4. In the Lexmark S300 Series Properties window, go to Advanced tab. Click on Printing Defaults.
5. Under Ink Use, select Print using black ink only. Click OK.
6. Click OK button in the Lexmark S300 Series Properties window to save the changes.

Your printer will print in black only the next time you send a print job to the printer.

For Mac:

1. With the file (you wish to print) open, click File.
2. Click Print.
3. Expand the arrow pointing down beside printer name if you're not able to see other options for printing. Look for Quality and Media in a drop down box and select print in black and white.
4. Save this as your default print setting. Click Presets option and choose Save as. You can personalize the name for this default print setting (e.g. Black and White Draft or My Setting).

Select this Preset name every time you print your files/documents.
Note: The 100 standard cartridges yield around 175 ISO Pages. You can also save on ink and stretch your ink investment if you use only 100XL high yield cartridges. These contain almost 3x as much ink as a standard cartridge for a small increment in price.

Page yields are estimates and how many pages (or photos) you get out of a cartridge depends on the percent coverage for each color. In general page yields are based on 5% coverage, which translates to double spaced text. Printing photos uses a LOT of ink and it seems like there isn't much ink in these cartridges to start with. I would not expect that the ink alert is malfunctioning. I own a Cartridge World ink refilling store and I would be happy to give you a recommendation on a printer that would better suit your needs.

This may be because ink is clogged in the printhead. ? Place the clogged cartridge in about 1/4 - 1/2 inch of warm water for a few minutes. When ink starts to slowly leak out take the cartridge out of the water and dry it using a soft cloth to "Q-tip." Then place it back in your printer and run the print head cleaning utility that comes with your printer software. You may have to run this 2-4 times before printing quality is reestablished. If your print head is destroyed, as can happen, you will have to buy a cartridge and refill that cartridge before it is fully empty.

you need to change the print head ...

Try checking the ink cartridges and make sure they have ink in them or it will keep printing blank pages. Then try printing a test page by going to control panel, clicking on printers and faxes and right clicking on your printer and going to properties. Then go all the way down to the bottom of the page and click print test page. It will clean the printer cartridges and align them to print correctly. It should work after that.

This came from brothers website:

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.

Have you try to change your cartridge. Some times when you refill your cartridge, the flow of ink do not work properly. Try to change your both cartridge and then try

My printer has funn ink cartridges and it is printing blank pages and it is saying that the ink is empty. Please help

First of all, there is the seller's liability here. If it's from eBay, there's some protection feature for you to use. The "prints blank pages" problem is believed to be caused by a clogged purge tube. Here is a guide I found that exlpains the problem, and how to solve it: Recently, after changing out the blank ink tank on my finacee's Epson CX5400 multifunction inkjet printer, the printer began printing nothing but blank pages. Even after doing multiple head cleanings and test prints, pages would emerge from the printer completely blank. After some research, a number of fellow CX5400 owners have reported having the same problems, to the extent that the term "design flaw" became a common theme. I've owned several Epson printers and have had, generally, good luck with them. I was always somewhat suspicious of Epson's philosophy of making the print heads a permanent part of the printer and having the only replaceable part be the ink tanks, but it produced good-looking prints so it didn't bother me. Now I know, unfortunately, that this system is both a blessing and a curse. Before we delve into how to fix your blank-page-printing problem, a quick explanation on how Epson's ink delivery system works (or, rather, how it appears Epson's ink delivery system works, because Epson isn't exactly willing to divulge its trade secrets) is in order. There are a few components to the delivery system. First, you have the ink tanks. Early Epson tanks were just that; plastic boxes with a sponge inside saturated with ink. Newer tanks have a small PCB with a flash chip on it, so the printer can tell if a tank is new or used, or if it's an Epson brand cartridge or a generic replacement. In either case, the basic functionality is that it's a holder for the ink. Next in the chain are the ink tubes and primer. I've heard conflicting reports on how Epson printers get the ink out of the tanks; some believe that the tanks are positively pressurized when first installed, so that ink shoots out of the tank when the printer needs it. Other reports say that the printer puts negative pressure on the cartridge to draw ink out of it. Once the printer has the ink out of the cartridge, there are two places it can go, to either the print heads or to the purge tube. The print heads are what makes the ink spray onto the paper; the purge tube is where the ink goes when the printer primes new cartridges and cleans dirty print heads. Many cases of the "prints blank pages" problem occur right after installing new ink tanks. People have literally removed empty tanks from printers that work perfectly, and installed new tanks to find that the printer delivers blank pages (this happened to me). Since it's highly unlikely that the print heads have become clogged during the 5 minutes it takes to swap out the cartridges, the problem has to be elsewhere in the ink delivery system. So here's what happens when you install a new ink tank: 1. The new tank is installed, the printer recognizes that it's a new tank, and begins the priming sequence. 2. The printer starts to prime the tank. Ink comes out of each tank and is directed to the purge tube. 3. The ink flows through the purge tube into the internal absorbent pad. 4. After a couple seconds, the printer stops the priming sequence and probably does a quick print head cleaning. Now, a few people have done some in-depth troubleshooting and found that the "prints blank pages" problem is actually caused by a clogged purge tube. While this may not immediately make sense (you may be thinking, "so what if the tube is clogged, the ink will just spill inside the printer elsewhere"), here's what my research suggests happens when the problem occurs: 1. The new tank is installed, the printer recognizes that it's a new tank, and begins the priming sequence. 2. The printer starts to prime the tank. Ink comes out of each tank and is directed to the purge tube. 3. The tube is blocked, so the ink has nowhere to go. 4. After a couple seconds, the printer stops the priming sequence. Epson's ink delivery system appears to be a sealed system, so when the ink has nowhere to go in step 3, little ink has actually escaped the new ink tanks. This means they're not primed correctly, and won't deliver ink as they need to when the printer goes to print. So unless the purge tube gets cleaned out, you can swap tanks and perform head cleanings until the cows come home and it won't do any good. Now that there's a basic understanding of what's going on, here's how to try to fix the problem. This guide is meant to be model-agnostic; I did this procedure to a Stylus CX5400 multifunction, but it should be similar for most Epson inkjets made in the past few years. It's unknown if new Epsons still have this problem, as it usually takes a year or more to surface. The first thing you need to do is prepare your work surface. You'll need a big table, preferably one you don't care too much about. If all you have is your good kitchen table, then it's a good idea to slice open a tall kitchen garbage bag to make one large sheet, and tape it to the table to protect it. Next, you'll need the following tools and supplies: (View attached picture)