HP OfficeJet 6500 will not print using black cartridge only

[HeyMoe]

I recently purchased the wireless 6500 and would like to print all of documents using the black print cartridge ONLY.  I have my "color" preset on gray-scale and the "color option" set to black print cartridge only, which discussions with HP customer service confirmed was exactly how to set that up.

With the black only settings, however, I am blowing thru all the color cartridges at a ridiculously fast rate.   I did return the printer once and the new printer is doing exactly the same thing.  HP insists this couldn't/shouldn't be happening, but has been unable to offer any sort of a solution.

The majority of my documents are .pdf files I open with Preview.  Is it possible that the the CMM thingy is somehow affecting my ability to print using only the black cartridge?

Anyone help or insight concerning this sort of problem would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you,

Bob

[Dyanne]

Bob, did you find out the answer to this question? I'm having the same problem.

Anyone at HP wanna take a stab at this one?

Dyanne 

[superlight]

I am not sure if I have the same problem. Can you tell me if my print problem is the same as yours. I have an OfficeJEt 6500 printing from 2 Apple Computers. I have printed 8 pages using the best quality settings from Excel, Mail, and Word. All pages have a light black instead of a dark inky black. All text is a little soft around the edges.

I tried your "Black ink cartridge" setting and the print looked light like the others.

Is this the same as your problem? I bought two of these printers for work. I have one still in the box. I hope we can solve our problems before the returns start this weekend. 

[titus]

I'm having the same thing going on here on my Mac. Prints great but even in Grayscale mode, it's printing using all four colors (I put my magnifying glass on it). I'm blowing through the ink too and when I was out buying new cartridges, they were out. I guess there is a very high demand for the 920XL.

HP...can you update the drivers so we can just print in black in the grayscale mode please?  The "ink effeciency" was one reason I bought this printer...and I'm sadly disappointed. 

[macjames]

This problem still exists when trying to print from web pages. Changing browsers will allow certain pages to print in black only but not other web pages. You have to use different web browsers for printing labels from different shipping sites. There is no fix, have been working with HP or 2 months with no fix to problem. It does blow through ink like crazy, not economical at all. Been using with MacBook Pro, Leopard with latest updates.

[dbelardinelli]

Hi there,

Same problem here, and welcome to the ink ripoff club!  same problem here, 2 printers, $200 in ink, and over 3 hours wasted on the phone with "tech" support and still not able to print using black ink only.  What a ripoff!  Tech support people are really nice but so what? A simple driver fix could avoid this problem but HP much rather keep making a fortune selling ink and misrepresenting how the product actually works. 

To those who have just encountered the problem/ripoff, make no mistake, this is not something you will re-installing your software, replacing the cartridges, creating a new printing template or even returning the printer.  I've been through all of that and nothing.  I am absolutely convinced that ths is simply a racket to make you buy more and more ink.  And beware, because HP replaced my printer but your new warranty is only 90 days.

My suggestion, buy a laser printer, black only, ( a lot of other brands out there) if you mostly print black.  If like me, you need the convenience of an all-in-one, buy a refill ink kit and never again over pay for ink you never even intended to be using in the first place.

It would be nice if HP accepted their fault on this issue and simply fixed the driver.

regars,

daniel 

[macjames]

Yep, they are not fixing the driver. They finally exchanged my printer for a laser P1005.

[dbelardinelli]

Hi There,

Try this little trick, a happy accident...  This worked on a Mac, not sure about PCs.

Go to your Print & Fax preferences, click on Printer Setup... on the pulldown menu choose Printer Model... Go down to HP and choose HP LaserJet 4 series,

I picked this arbitrarily to see what happended and  when you go back to Text Edit, Preview or word and click print, you will notice that your printing options have changed... You won't have the Paper Quality menu anymore or the option to printing in color, you can tweak some settings under Printer Features, but even by just clicking Print under "Standard" I finally got text to print in black ink, no more grey, or traces of color ink...  

you will need to choose your actual model again if you wanna print color, but I've been printing a bunch of pages using only black ink.  Let me now if this helps.

Regards,

db 

[pk2kdd]

I also have the OfficeJet 6500 and had the same problem. The black text was printing using a mix of colored inks instead of the black ink, resulting in a grey, fuzzy text. I finally found a solution. In each application under Page Setup, there is an option called "Format for". Mine had been set to "Any Printer". I changed that to "Officejet 6500 E709n [830E4A]" and now it prints the black just fine. I have a Mac running 10.4.11. Hope this helps.

[macjames]

Both you and the previous psoster found solutions that tech sujpport did not know. They finally swapped me a laser printer after three months  of trying everything they could think of. Good going people!!