We have all been faced with this scenario: we need to print something for work or school only to find our HP inkjet printer isn’t cooperating. The good news is many of the common problems that may be preventing your print job from going through can be easily corrected. Below are some tips that can help you next time you’re facing this type of scenario.
Paper Jams
By far, the most common problem affecting any type of printer is paper jams. These can happen for any number of reasons but are often just a consequence of the construction of the machine. Different HP inkjet printers have the rollers in different locations so you may have an easy or difficult time reaching them in order to remove the offending trapped paper. No matter where the rollers can be found in the machine you should always remember to pull out the paper in the same direction as the normal printing path. Pulling it backwards could do damage to the printer.
- HP Inkjet Printer
Unable to Find Correct Printer Driver
If you want to be able to use all of the functionality of your HP printer, be sure to have installed the appropriate printer driver for the machine. Otherwise, some features might not work correctly. You may find some drivers are more difficult to find online than others but doing a search for the brand and model is one way to track down the driver you need. An easier way is to go to a site such as PrintCountry.com, which will email you the printer driver you want for free.
Faded Ink after a few Print Jobs
What if you’ve printed several jobs after changing the printer ink cartridge then the ink starts to look faded and too light only have a handful of pages have gone through. If you have this problem, first clean the heads of your HP printer. Check the manual for the specific details on how to do this for your machine. If the improvement from this is only temporary, you should return the cartridge.
Refusing to Print
If you try to print and get an error message each time, you should always check the simple problems first before assuming there is a problem with your HP printer. Check to make sure your printer is probably connected and is turned on. Also check your printer settings on your computer to be certain that you have selected your printer from the menu.
If your HP printer is connected to your system via a network, you should make sure those connections are working as well. Finally, take note of the error message or number then do a search at the HP site or via Google for information on what the problems means so you can fix it.