Colour text printing in black and grey

[Allen94]

When I have a colour document in Word or Adobe DC to print, it prints in black and grey tones. No option to print in this mode is selected. It's a new all in one printer bought earlier today and the ink cartridges passed the tests and the test quality print sheet prints ok in colour. Latest software and drivers downloaded from the HP website.

[Chimney_83]

Greetings @Allen94, 

Thanks for the post. 

I understand that you are unable to print in color using Word or Adobe, is that right?

Kudos to you for trying to troubleshoot the issue on your own.

Not to worry, I will be glad to assist you. 

Have you checked the printer preferences?

Open Devices and Printers from the control panel. 

Right-click on the printer icon and select Printer Preferences. 

On the printer preferences window that pops up, select the Paper/Quality tab. 

In the paper/quality tab, make sure the color option is selected. 

If you do not see the option for Color, please follow the exact procedure mentioned below to uninstall and reinstall the printer. 

Uninstall the printer from "programs and features" which can be accessed by doing a right-click on the Windows button (Please have the printer Off and disconnected during uninstallation.)

Check in device manager, if the printer is listed there, please delete it. (Right-click on the Windows button to access device manager)

Go to devices and printers, select any printer listed there and you will get some options on the top. 

Click on print server properties. 

You will get a popup, click on the drivers tab and delete all the HP printer drivers listed there, if any.

Delete all the instances of your printer listed in devices and printers.

Restart the PC.

Once the PC is on the desktop, press Win + R, it would bring a Run dialog box, 

Type %temp% in the run box and click Ok or hit the Enter button.

It would bring up the temporary files folder. Delete the files in the folder (You might not be able to delete all the files, ignore them).

If possible, delete the printer from the registries using Regedit or using any other 3rd party application.

Restart the PC again. 

Download the latest full feature driver from www.hp.com/drivers and install it on the computer.

Power On/Connect the printer to your computer only when the setup prompts for the printer. 

Let me know if this helped. 

[Allen94 · Accepted solution]

Whilst waiting for a solution via this support forum, I went online and contacted tech support. An engineer logged on my laptop and remotely assisted.

Bottom line is that he performed diagnostics, tried a few options and then performed a manual install to overcome bugs in the auto install routines that fail to work correctly in Windows 10. He got me working with two print profiles for the same device - one for WIFI printing and one for network scanning. Not ideal, but a decent workaround until perhaps HP issued an update that includes a fix. The engineer couldn’t say if or when HP would issue a fix.

Having just retired from working in senior management within IT in commercial organisations for 34 years, it’s peculiarly reassuring to find that this aspect of the industry in relation to HP and Microsoft’s Operating system software has not changed😱

[Chimney_83]

Thanks for the reply and glad that the issue is resolved.

Please do post your technical queries on our Forums for assistance.