Printing problem Our 5300 printer has not been printing black as when printing a page or document, or when copying documents. It seems to print colors ok, picture come out good. I changed ink cartridges, ran printhead cleaning 20 times, took out print head and cleaned it; still no black when trying to print type.

Check the printers settings. It could be that it is set up incorrectly or you may be out of ink and it only appears to print from your computer because it can use all colors to make it appear black ink is used. Usually when color ink is used to create black print, it isn't a Black Black but with a bit of brownish hue. Try changing setting to USE BLACK ONLY and then see what happens. ALSO TRY my solution vice a versa.

Good luck

Perform the head cleaner mantenace menu and feed roller cleaner then make a test print.

This has to do with the document printing properties. When you are ready to print a document, choose properties and make sure you go through the printer settings under that software.
The test page only verifies the cartridges. The printer properties of the software control the printer during printing.

Could be software. I have seen the last several Adobe latest version documents take several seconds to print. I have also seen increased print times with MS office 2003 Powerpoint documents.If it is a single page MS Word or Excel document and u are printing several copies of it, you should turn off the collate feature for printing of that document

Instead of pressing the start button to print, you need to press the small ON/OFF button. The start button works to copy/scan. But to print, you will need to turn the printer on first. Once the printer is on, the computer should recognize it fine and allow you to print from your applications.

In the printing preferences you need to select Black and white.

1. open the document you want to print
2. click file
3. click print
4. select printer from list, then click on preferences
5. look around the pages.

In Color tab I found a print in Grayscale - this setting will print the document in black and white colors, the pages may be diffrent on diffrent printers. look for black and white setting or Grayscale.

picture: printing preferences, color page on a hp printer, select grayscale with black cartridge only.

Their should be a Black Copy button and a Color Copy  Button . When wanting to copy a document in color you must choose the color start button.. Good Luck

call 1.800.421.6699 and select option 01 for prints missing black or color ink and tell them you need a new printhead

What are you printing and from what software? Is it a word document etc? What size font have you selected in the original document?

Yes, this printer has fixed printheads and must have ink in each color to prevent damage to the printheads. Even when printing black only each color is spit in the servicing area to keep the printhead unclogged.

Regards,
Bob Headrick, Microsoft MVP Printing/Imaging