I want to print black only

Most likely you cannot. If you do not have any of the colour cartridges with ink in them, the print heads will dry out and when you want to print in colour you will not be able to print in colour.

You have to refill both.

Hi,The most common reason for missing or incorrect colors is a print cartridge with one of the following problems:

• One or more of the ink colors is empty. The black ink and all three colors of ink in the tri-color cartridge must be available or colors will be incorrect or missing. Under normal usage, the print cartridge will run low on one color of ink shortly before all ink colors are emptied.
• The protective tape is not removed from a new cartridge.
• Contacts on the cartridge are not making proper contact with the print carriage.
• The cartridge is remanufactured or refilled.
• The cartridge is defective.

search through your manual for grayscale options... this is usually code word for black and white...

I’m happy to assist further over the phone at https://www.6ya.com/expert/norman_d2fa496dce30c65d

ITS NOT THE BLACK CARTRIDGE!!! Try changing the colour cartridge and see what happens. When a 9600 checks ink levels it does the black ink first, then the colour, if the colour is low it goes back and checks the black again but will constantly give an error message for the black cartridge. Sounds bizarre but try just the black cartridge in with no colour. print a test page in black only, if that does not print then it is a fault. Also make sure the driver is updated!!!

Yes you have to have ink in all of them. No, accordign to Canon it wil not work without them. 

take the cartridges out and clean them also clean where they go with a lint free cloth then replace them.

This has been just happening with me aswell - I just changed the colour cartridge with the black cartridge ran out but i kept it in as it told me to place one in. Trying to print out but black ink wont come - just blank pages - surely the colour cartridge can make black? However, if you have the colour cartridge and are on microsoft word or similar, change the colour of the writing to dark navy and it will print out documents.

It will tell you the colour is low, regardless of the format in which you are printing. I don't believe Canon provide a way for you to disable this for their printer range, so you'll need to put in the new colour cartridge to get rid of this error. (you should however, be able to print whilst receiving this message)

hi,

it is not possible to print without a color cartridge even if you are trying to print in black and white.

so i suggest u to replace the color cartridge with a new one and check

thanks and regards
agnel