how to switch between ink cartridges on Canon MX870?

[mobrenjam]

Hi -

I feel silly for posting what I thought would be an easy-to-figure-out question, but...

I have 5 ink cartridges on this machine - a large black ink, plus 4 smaller color inks, one of which is also black. although I print very little in color, for some reason, the printer uses only the ink from the small black cartridge. It is showing as almost empty, and cannot for the life of me figure out how to get the printer to use the big cartridge instead.

Thanks for help!

 

[pharmacist]

If you choose photo paper the printer will automatically use the smaller (dye) cartridge to print black. If you choose normal paper the black is from the large black (pigment). The reason is you want to have waterproof laser sharp prints and that's the pigment black is giving you. On the other hand the pigment black will be muted and often flake off from your photo paper. So there is a reason why there are two blacks: one for photo paper and one for normal paper. Therefore: choose normal paper to print on.

I find a bit strange you said you do print with little color so I figure you are using normal paper, so it must be the large black pigment cartridge. I find the facts a bit contradicting...

 

[mobrenjam]

I agree that it is very strange! But it is indeed the small black cartridge that is showing as almost empty. And I am definitely not selecting photo paper. Any other suggestions?

 

[ghwellsjr]

Canon printers will also use the thinner dye ink cartridge if you tell it to do borderless printing on plain paper.

And are you telling the printer that you are printing on plain paper--not matte or any other paper type?

 

[mobrenjam]

I will check if it is set to borderless printing - I think it is. Yes, the documents are all set up to print on plain paper. It is possible that it is now printing off the correct cartridge and I won't be able to know that for certain until that cartridge level also goes down...

I know that the most recent document I was printing - 20 pages - had headers written in blue ink. So that may have set the entire document to print in color. That may have been the problem earlier, too, as I would print items off the internet that would be mostly black but with a small amount of color on the screen.

What I was always searching for - and never could find a way to do - was to actually control (on the printer or in the printer control screen on the computer - a Mac) if it would print color or black and white. I would prefer to print everything in black and white.

Thanks for your thoughts.

 

[The Hat]

mobrenjam

When you want to print a document go to file / print /Advanced / select Quality & Media / Grey Scale. See pics 1, 2 and 3..

 

[mobrenjam]

Thanks everybody. I will stick with advice from The Hat about using Greyscale.