WHY IS MY PRINTER PRINTING PINK
Strange blotches, unsightly streaks, and everything is printing out an odd shade of pink. Printouts like this are not ideal, but there is a simple solution that’ll stop you wondering; ‘why is my printer printing pink?’ All you’ll need to do is a couple of simple test that shouldn’t leave you covered in pink ink either. Here’s a guide on how to fix your pink printing problems.
WHY IS THIS HAPPENING
Common printer to page technology processes colour in four parts; cyan, magenta, yellow and black, or toner. This colour model is called CMYK and works by creating different colour combinations with the four colours to get the best colour grade for print. With this, the ink cartridges in your inkjet or colour laser printer are split up into these four colours. From time to time one colour may run out before another, but this depends on the colours you tend to print the most often.
For example, if you’re printing a seaside setting and the sea prints a pinkish colour, your cyan cartridge may need refilling. If this seaside picture should have red beach huts, but they are now an unnatural shade of pink, you have run out of yellow ink. A modern printer will automatically try and make up the colour that’s missing with what’s left in the remaining coloured ink, but you’ll always have a dominant colour. In this case the dominant colour is magenta.
HOW TO FIX THE PROBLEM
If you’re unable to achieve accurate colours when printing, there are a couple of easy tests you can do to determine what needs to be done to resolve the issue.
More than likely the problem will be an empty cartridge, so firstly, you should check the ink levels of your printer. You won’t need to open up the printer up to do this as you just need to access the printer’s maintenance utilities. This can be found either through your start menu on your PC or, on the printer’s LCD navigation screen, if it has one. Where this is located does depend on the make and model of your printer. Once you’re in the maintenance utilities, you’ll be able to see what cartridges are low or out of ink.
If the ink levels look normal but you’re still not getting the quality printing you require, it may be time to do a test print or nozzle check. From this, you’ll be able to determine what colour cartridge is causing the problem as the test separates cyan, magenta and yellow apart.
A test may be necessary because if you’ve not printed in a while the ink in the cartridges can dry up and clog the nozzle. By doing a nozzle check, the printer will essentially clean out the nozzle, freeing it of any clogged particles. It’s best to do the nozzle test last, as this can consume large amounts of ink during the process.
With these simple tests you’ll be able to determine which ink cartridge likely needs changing and this can, in turn, help maintain the upkeep of your printer.