Color printer set to Black/Grayscale, but keeps using color cartridges

sonoferu · 27 Oct 2023

Our kids chipped in to buy us an Epson XP7100 color printer for Christmas. They know we like to add photos on our giant family bulletin board. Sweet and thoughtful, but it wasn't something we had been wishing for. Now I wish we could go back to the Brother HL2040. of

We really don't print color much at all. And I was shocked the first time one of the colors ran empty and I found that it had been printing in black and white all along by mixing the colors to get black. And I found that a box of ink is $79.98.

So I figured out how to get into printing preferences and set the radio button from "Color" to "Black/Grayscale". I would think that that setting would make the printer print by only using the BLACK cartrige.

But now I've had a handful of times that the printer gave me a popup saying one or another of the colors had run out.

SO -- HOW CAN THE PRINTER BE USING ANY OF THE COLOR CARTRIDGES???

idgat · 27 Oct 2023

Check the installed drivers.

If it's the Windows default driver installed, then you may need to download the proprietary driver from the manufacture's web site

If the proprietary driver is installed, uninstall it and use the "built-in" Windows default driver. And/Or check that the proprietary driver is up to date.

Berton · 27 Oct 2023

That's the downside of color printers, mix the ink. Bad part is seldom can they print black only if the color cartridges are empty or removed. For years I printed a lot of black, since getting my first laser printer in '95, a Lexmark Optra R, have an HP OfficeJet Pro and an HP LaserJet Pro. Wife uses only the OfficeJet, prints things from the Internet such as recipes, quilting pages and others needing color.