Printing with just a black cartridge?

contraband

I have an oldish HP Business Inkjet 1100. The color cartridges are apparently out of ink, and now it won't print anything. The black cartridge is still fine, although it still refuses to print text documents. Is there any way to tell the printer to print exclusively in greyscale, for just text documents, using only the black cartridge? The color carts are really expensive, and all I need right now is black for text documents. Thanks in advance.

Szechuanosaurus

Urgh. Some printers will let you do it, just by hitting print, but others are total dicks and will refuse to print unless they have the full compliment of ink.

You could try changing the output colour setting to greyscale in the printer settings and see if that will let you get around it. When you select print in the application you are using, it should give you a button called something like Printer Settings or Preferences or something in the dialogue box, where you ought to be able to tell it to print in black only, but it's anybodies guess whether that will help. Bear in mind that HP make all their money off selling atrociously overpriced catridges, so it makes sense for them to have a built-in feature that cripples the printer if one of the colours runs out.

Daedalus

I know HP's newer printers don't do this. Try updating the drivers and seeing if that helps.

The Cheese

I have a Canon printer that does this and is a total cunt about it. I can force it to print by pushing the paper feed button on it, but it prints out all pink and splotchy if the cartridges are in there, and blank pages if they aren't. Even if it's full of black ink.

Anyways, try hitting the paper feed button.