why does my printer run out of color ink when i mostly use black?

Question

i keep losing color ink when i just usually use black ink for txt docs. is there something wrong with this picture or did i do something terrably wrong with my printer settings? I have a EPSON R300 Stylus.

Answer 1

when you print, you sould be selecting black and white. Otherwirse, if you're defaulted to color, the printer will mix the colors to give you black.

Answer 2

Almost every home use printer these days does not use a true black, this is done to enhance grey scale printing, however it requires that the printer use all the colours to darken and sharpen the black in order to get a true black in everyday printing.

There is no way to turn this function off. Setting the printer to black only will just print in greyscale and still utilize the colour cartridges.

Answer 3

Unless you specifically change your printer settings to use BLACK only, the printer will automatically use the colors to produce BLACK. You should have a manual for the printer or poke around in the Advanced Printer Settings to select the BLACK only cartridge to print black. You will have to manually switch back and forth if printing black only and color prints later...

Good luck...

Answer 4

It helps if you choose to print text and black and white images in black and white mode. Your color cartridge prints black by mixing all of the colors, and so printing black in color mode uses more ink. Also, consider that the black cartridge is the same size as the color one, but the black is all one color ink, and the color contains three different colors in resevoirs, so less ink per color than the black cart.

Answer 5

If your printer setup isn't set to black and white only, it draws from both the black and color catridge. That is a little trick the printer companies use to make you purchase color cartridges. My old printer had to be reset to b&w every time I used it. I got so tired of it that I pulled the color cartidge and sealed it in plastic wrap only putting it in when I needed it. My new one stays set for me though...

Answer 6

Probably, your printer indicates low level in black ink so it makes the black color from the color ink cartridge.

Answer 7

Some companies do this so you will by more ink. With out looking at what settings are given in the software, why not place another black cartridge in the one that is empty and see what happens.

Answer 8

Unless you set to use non color, then even some of the other colors mix in the black. Besides they dont give a lot of ink in the cartrage.