Interesting

Printer does not print [solution]

Hello!

I don't think I will surprise anyone if I say that one of the most important office devices is a printer ...

And quite often (especially when you need to print something urgently) - the printer gives "pirouettes": it seems to have sent a document for printing, but it does not react at all. Or maybe it just "buzzed" for 10-15 seconds. and then he fell silent, as if nothing had happened ... 👀

In many cases, this problem can be quickly eliminated on your own (without calling, once again, the system administrator, especially during the New Year holidays ✌).

In general, in this article I will give the most common reasons for this printer behavior, which I often come across.

So...

👉 To help!

By the way, if you type a lot, you may need specials. utilities that can automatically switch keyboard layouts (depending on the text being typed - they determine the language themselves).

*

Why the printer might not print

Reason # 1: there is no communication between the computer and the printer

Quite a common phenomenon: the computer is turned on, but the printer is not - as a result, no matter how long you send a document to print, nothing will be printed anyway.

Of course, I understand that this reason is trivial, but still, you have no idea how many times you had to deal with it (and how many more to come, I think ...).

You should also pay attention to wires: quite often the plug may come loose or not fit snugly (just try reconnecting it). Sometimes the cable can be interrupted by careless movement of furniture (example in the photo below).

Broken USB cable

One more point: if you print onnetwork printerconnected to another PC with a USB cable, check that, in addition to the printer, that a computer was also turned on and had a local network working for him.

👉 Advice!

A simple restart of the printer and computer often helps to solve the problem. I recommend giving it a try!

In general, summing up, I can say that these commonplace reasons account for almost a third of cases of problems with the printer ...

*

Reason # 2: the print queue is stuck

When you print many documents and send them to the printer one by one, it happens that the print queue hangs (i.e. some kind of failure occurs and the printer cannot get out of this state).

Ideally, you want to undo ALL print queue (delete everything from it) and try to send a document to print again.

By the way, I noticed that the print queue often hangs when printing large documents: multi-page texts, sheets (with a lot of graphics), documents the size of which exceeds tens of megabytes.

How to view and clear the print queue

Go to the control panel (how to open it) Windows at the following address: " Control Panel \ Hardware and Sound " ... Next, you need to open the tab "Devices and Printers" (see the screen below 👇).

Devices and Printers

After that, you need to find the connected printer, and click on it with the right mouse button - in the context menu, select "View the print queue" .

View the print queue

All documents in the print queue should be deleted. To cancel printing - just right-click on the file, and click "cancel " (as in the screenshot below 👇).

Cancel queue

I should note that sometimes the print queue hangs in such a way that it cannot be marked in this usual way ...

If the print queue does not clear

First you need to open the services, for this click the buttons WIN + R , enter the command services.msc and press Enter.

How to open services / Windows 7, 8, 10

Next in services find "Print Manager" , right-click on it and stop it running.

👉 Note! This service is needed so that Windows can queue printing documents, if it is disabled - you will not be able to print to the printer ...

Stopping the print manager

Next, you need to go to the folder - C: \ WINDOWS \ system32 \ spool \ PRINTERS (Administrator rights required). In this folder, see if there are any files there. If they are, remove them all from it.

Deleting Files in Print Folders

Important!

After deleting files, don't forget to enable Print Manager in Services!

Test Print / Check Printer

After clearing the print queue, try opening properties printer and produce test print (see screenshot below 👇).

This is to make sure that everything is in order with the printer itself and its connection to the computer. It's just that sometimes the print queue hangs due to certain "broken" files, and it is logical that it would be necessary to check this moment ...

Test print

*

Reason # 3: the wrong printer is selected for printing

Usually several printers are installed in Windows, for example, Microsoft Print to PDF, Fax, etc. They have nothing to do with a real printer. Now imagine that a real one (or even several) is added to these printers, and as a result, the user often sends a document to print to the wrong device!

👉 Note! In addition, often when setting up a printer, the wizards choose one of them as the main one, so that printing to it would go by default. But sometimes this setting gets lost, or some program (in which you want to print) selects a different printer.

Choosing a Printer to Print

How to change the default printer

First open the Windows Control Panel at: Control Panel \ Hardware and Sound \ Devices and Printers

Next, select the printer that you want by default to always be the first one when printing documents, right-click on it and select from the menu "use default" .

By the way, note that a green circle with a check mark will start to burn on it (screen below 👇).

Setting the default printer

*

Reason # 4: paper is jammed or missing

A very common cause of a printer refusing to print a document is the lack of paper in the tray. It would seem an obvious fact, but often many are in no hurry to open the tray and check if there is paper there.

👉 By the way, an important point!

Some printers have several trays for paper (for example, for A3 and A4). If the paper runs out in at least one of them, then the printer will refuse to print ...

More unpleasant moment - the paper in the printer can jam. In this case, you can see a warning in Windows, or on the printer itself: if it has a digital window where you can set parameters and receive notifications.

What to do with a jam (see screen below):

  1. if you see jammed sheet and you can grab it - then gently and slowly pull it towards you. the main thing: do not tear or tug at the sheet, just pull slowly. Believe me, if the sheet breaks and scraps of paper remain on the drums - in some cases you have to disassemble half of the printer mechanism!
  2. if the sheet is not visible: try to remove the cartridge (in many models of laser printers, it is behind it that the sheet of paper goes to print). If you see a sheet - also try to pull it and slowly release it from under the various rollers;
  3. if you took out part of the sheet, and some of the pieces are jammed on the rollers: most likely you will have to disassemble the printer. In some cases (if you can crawl) try to hook the piece with tweezers.

Paper jam

To avoid jams, I recommend:

  1. The most common cause of paper jams is recycling paper (or any torn old prints altogether). In general, it is ideal to install new paper from a standard, classic A4 ream. At leastif there is no way without reusing paper, then choose only even, smooth sheets that have not been wrinkled;
  2. set up correctly guides for paper: they should "tightly" cover the sheet, but not squeeze it.Ideally, if there is a very small gap;
  3. if a jam occurs constantly from time to time - perhaps you have a problem with the mechanics in the printer: for example, a roller was damaged and now it is not guiding the paper correctly. By the way, they can often be damaged by pulling on a stuck or jammed sheet.

Typical Printer Design - Paper Guides

*

Reason number 5: the ink in the device has run out (or a non-native cartridge is used)

In some cases, the printer may fail to print because the ink has run out. Moreover, for example, many inkjet printers may not print black and white text, even if the color ink has run out! How this is related to each other - I, frankly, do not really understand ...

Many printer models have a monitor for viewing the amount of ink remaining in real time (often this monitor can tell you how many sheets you can still print).

To open it, usually, it is enough to look at the icon next to the clock (where it appears overwhelmingly after installing the drivers). The example below is shown for an EPSON printer - as you can see, there is still a surplus of ink ...

👉 Note! The fact that ink is running out can be seen from the white blank sheets that come out after printing. Or by the uneven color when printing: one half of the sheet may be bright, the other - dull.

How much ink is left - EPSON Monitor

Another moment: after refilling the cartridge, or replacing it, the printer often reports that the cartridge is not "native", and that it may be the reason for the deterioration in print quality (note: the thing is that a native cartridge from the printer manufacturer costs the same as a new printer , so many refuel or buy similar cheaper cartridges).

In this case, the printer asks to confirm permission to use a non-native cartridge. We just agree and continue printing.

Confirmation of the use of a non-native cartridge

👉 Tip!

To extend the possibility of printing on a laser printer for a while, remove the cartridge from it and shake it slightly so that the toner (powder) is evenly located inside it.

Then reinstall it in the printer. This procedure allows you to print, on average, 20-100 pages of text.

*

Reason # 6: the driver is not installed, or a driver conflict has occurred

Usually a problem with drivers arises as a result of:

  1. reinstalling Windows (or, for example, creating a new user);
  2. when installing new equipment (no matter which one, a driver conflict may occur, as a result of which the printer driver will cease to function normally);
  3. due to a virus attack and damage to printer drivers.

As a rule, in all these cases, the user (at least!) Guesses what happened ...

In general, first you should go to device Manager ... To do this, you need to hold down the buttons WIN + R, then enter the command devmgmt.msc, press OK .

How to open the device manager

Next you need:

  1. open tab "print queue" and see if this tab contains the name of your printer, if there is a yellow exclamation mark next to it (which indicates the absence or problem with the driver);
  2. if there is no printer in the "print queue" - open the tab "Other devices" ... Most likely in it you will see one or more unknown devices: among them there should be a printer.

Driver problem and everything is OK

In general, I have several articles on my blog devoted to the problem of drivers. Therefore, in order not to repeat myself (especially since this topic is quite extensive), I will provide links to them here 👇.

👉 To help!

1) Programs for automatic driver updates.

2) How to remove old or unnecessary drivers (this article may come in handy if your old driver is damaged and you need to remove it, because a new one is not installed).

3) How to find a driver for an unknown device.

*

This concludes the article, for additions on the topic - a big merci in advance!

Hope you can fix the printer problem yourself.

Good luck!

👋

First publication: 01/28/2017

Correction: 01/05/2020

$config[zx-auto] not found$config[zx-overlay] not found