Can't print black and white with empty color cartridge

[Donal_M]

My printer will not print black and white unless an empty color cartridge is replaced.

How can I print black with an empty colour cartridge in place?

[Ciara_B · Accepted solution]

Some IIC printers (Individual Ink Cartridge) have printheads that require ink available for periodic servicing tasks. This helps to prevent issues with clogs in the printhead and poor Print Quality. The following printers cannot print when an ink cartridge is empty, even though the other cartridges have ink.

If one or more color ink cartridges are low but not empty and you want to minimize the use of color ink, you can change the settings in the HP software to print with black ink only (grayscale). Even if you change the print settings to print with black ink only, the other ink cartridges must still have ink in them in order for the printer to print.

If you choose to print with black ink only, the printer still uses small amounts of ink from all the ink cartridges for occasional servicing tasks. HP recommends that you replace any low ink cartridges to avoid any interruptions in printing.

For further details, refer to the link below

http://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c04331666