How to print in black only when color cartridge is out of ink

[becky222]

One of my color ink cartridges is out of ink.  I have a very large document that needs printing before I can get to the store.  So when the printer started giving warnings that that color was low, I switched my Adobe Acrobat print options to print in grayscale.  The printer displayed a warning that the color was was empty, and that if I pressed OK, it would print only black. Since that is exactly what I asked Adobe to print, I pressed OK.  I was successful in printing 80% of my document.  But now the printer displays a warning that it cannot print.  

Why does the printer require a non-empty color ink cartridge when I am printing in grayscale?

[sandytechy20 · Accepted solution]

@becky222

Welcome to the HP Forums, this is a great location to get assistance! I read your post and see that one of the color cartridge is empty and you are unable to print in grayscale mode. I would like to help you resolve this issue. 

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. I recommends that you replace any low ink cartridges to avoid any interruptions in printing.

Let me know how it goes.

Cheers.

[djtrax]

Well that is ridiculous!