Your printer says it cannot print black, and the only empty cartridge is a colour on some machines that is a setting you can change in a minute, and on others it is a rule with no way round it
The black cartridge is nearly full, the magenta is empty, and the document you want is a page of black text with no colour anywhere on it. The printer will not touch it. Most people read that as the manufacturer squeezing them, and the more useful reading is that on roughly half the machines we track this takes a minute to sort out, while on the other half nothing you do at your desk will help.
Why an empty colour can stop a black page
Nothing is broken here. The printer is doing what it was designed to do, for two reasons.
The first is servicing. An inkjet keeps its nozzles clear by pushing a little ink through them on a schedule, and on a machine with the print head built into the body that servicing draws from every tank, including the ones you are not printing with. HP describes this plainly for the cartridge families where it applies: ink is required in all cartridges to print and to perform periodic servicing to prevent clogs and other print quality issues. Brother is blunter about the failure mode. Its support says the machine is designed to stop all printing operations when any cartridge reaches end of life to protect the print head, because if it carried on, print jobs and cleaning cycles would suck air from the empty cartridge and damage the head.
The second is that the head has to stay wet. Epson says its printers have a permanent print head that needs to be charged with all colours to work, that a small amount of colour ink is used even when you are printing black text only, and that the charge is what keeps air bubbles out, since air bubbles can damage the head. Damage a permanent head and you are not replacing a cartridge, you are replacing the printer.
So the block is a judgement the maker made on your behalf: a few days of no printing against a machine that might not recover. You can disagree with where they drew the line while accepting that the line is about hardware rather than sales. Each maker allows something different once you have hit it.
Both reasons apply to a printer that keeps its head in the body. If yours keeps the head on the cartridge, the whole problem is smaller, and working out which design you own takes about a minute.
On an HP it depends on the number, not the model
HP publishes the answer, and it catches people out because it is filed by cartridge number. Two HP printers that sit next to each other in a shop can behave completely differently, and the model name tells you nothing. HP's own document sorts its inkjet cartridges into three groups. Below is every HP inkjet in our catalogue placed in the group HP's numbering puts it in.
Group one: keeps printing, replace it soon
HP says you can continue to print with one or more empty cartridges on these, and recommends replacing them as soon as possible to avoid printhead damage. Given what an empty tank does to a permanent head, take that seriously. Print what you need and order the cartridge. 16 of our HP inkjets land here, and all of them are OfficeJets.
| Cartridge number | Models we list | Years | For example |
|---|---|---|---|
| HP 902 | 5 | 2016 to 2019 | OfficeJet 6958, OfficeJet 6962, OfficeJet Pro 6968 and 2 more |
| HP 910 | 7 | 2019 to 2020 | OfficeJet 8012, OfficeJet Pro 8015e, OfficeJet Pro 8020 and 4 more |
| HP 934 and 935 | 4 | 2014 to 2015 | OfficeJet 6812, OfficeJet Pro 6230, OfficeJet Pro 6830 and 1 more |
Group two: ink is required in all cartridges
These are the ones people write angry posts about. HP's wording is that ink is required in all cartridges to print and to perform periodic servicing, and that there is no way to bypass this feature. Greyscale will not help, the driver will not help, and neither will pulling the empty cartridge out. 19 of our HP inkjets are in this group, every one of them an OfficeJet or an OfficeJet Pro, which is to say the machines bought to print black text in volume.
| Cartridge number | Models we list | Years | For example |
|---|---|---|---|
| HP 932 and 933 | 4 | 2012 to 2013 | OfficeJet 6600, OfficeJet 6700, OfficeJet 7110 and 1 more |
| HP 950 and 951 | 4 | 2011 to 2013 | OfficeJet Pro 8100, OfficeJet Pro 8600, OfficeJet Pro 8610 and 1 more |
| HP 952 | 6 | 2016 to 2017 | OfficeJet Pro 7740, OfficeJet Pro 8210, OfficeJet Pro 8710 and 3 more |
| HP 962 | 5 | 2019 to 2021 | OfficeJet Pro 9015, OfficeJet Pro 9015e, OfficeJet Pro 9018e and 2 more |
You will know you are in this group by the message. HP lists three: the cartridges above must be replaced to resume printing, cartridges depleted, and depleted cartridges must be replaced to resume printing. Any of those means buy the colour.
Group three: two cartridges, so single cartridge mode
Machines that take one black and one tri-colour cartridge can print with one of them empty. HP's instruction is to take the empty cartridge out of the printer and select OK when the single cartridge mode message appears. This is the largest group we list, at 30 models, and it covers most of the DeskJet and ENVY range.
| Cartridge number | Models we list | Years | For example |
|---|---|---|---|
| HP 60 | 3 | 2008 to 2011 | DeskJet F4280, ENVY 110, PhotoSmart C4680 |
| HP 61 | 5 | 2013 to 2014 | DeskJet 1010, DeskJet 2540, ENVY 4500 and 2 more |
| HP 63 | 6 | 2015 to 2018 | DeskJet 1112, DeskJet 3632, ENVY 4520 and 3 more |
| HP 64 | 4 | 2017 | ENVY Photo 6255, ENVY Photo 7155, ENVY Photo 7855 and 1 more |
| HP 65 | 5 | 2017 to 2018 | DeskJet 2655, DeskJet 3755, DeskJet 3772 and 2 more |
| HP 67 | 7 | 2020 to 2022 | DeskJet 1255, DeskJet 2742e, DeskJet 2755e and 4 more |
Single cartridge mode has a catch on each side. Output quality drops, because the machine composes every shade from whichever cartridge is left. And the empty cartridge has to come out of the printer, which is the reverse of what Brother asks for in the next section. People who apply the Brother instruction to an HP, or the other way round, usually decide the printer has failed.
Two of our HP inkjets, the OfficeJet Pro 8000 and the OfficeJet Pro 8500A, run on HP 940 cartridges, which appear in none of HP's three lists. They are old enough that HP's current document does not cover them, so treat them as unknown and test with a black-only document before you assume either way.
Brother: black and white for about four weeks, and do not touch the empty
Brother handles this better than anyone else, and the instructions are counterintuitive enough that people defeat them by accident.
When a colour runs out, a Brother inkjet drops into what Brother calls B and W Print Only mode. The screen says B and W Print Only Replace Ink, or B and W 1-sided Print Only Replace Ink, and the machine carries on printing black documents. Brother puts a limit on it: you can use the machine as a black and white printer for approximately four weeks, depending on how many pages you print.
You can lose that mode by accident in two ways:
- Do not remove the empty cartridge. Brother says that if the empty cartridge is removed and the cover closed, the display will say Cannot Print. The empty cartridge has to stay in its slot for black and white mode to work. This is the exact opposite of HP's single cartridge mode, which is how somebody who has owned an HP ends up abandoning a Brother that would have kept printing.
- Do not unplug the machine. Brother warns that if you unplug it the memory may clear, and you are back to replacing the colour cartridge.
Four weeks is a grace period, not a licence to keep going, and the reason is the one from the first section: Brother is counting down to air reaching the head. Order the colour the day the message appears. We list 20 Brother inkjets, and this is the Brother house style across them.
Epson: temporary black printing, with conditions
Epson calls the feature temporary black printing, and it does exist, but it comes with a list of conditions that explains most of the complaints about it. Epson's wording is that when colour ink is expended and black ink still remains you can continue printing for a short time using only black ink, and that you should replace the expended cartridges as soon as possible.
The Windows procedure from Epson's own documentation:
- Cancel the print job that triggered the message.
- Load plain paper or an envelope. Epson means this literally, and it is where most attempts fail: photo paper or any other media setting will not work.
- Open the print settings, go to the Main tab, and set the paper type to Plain Paper, Bright White Paper or Envelope.
- Tick the checkbox Epson labels Black/Grayscale.
- Print, then click Print in Black when Epson Status Monitor 3 asks.
On a Mac the equivalent switch is Permit temporary black printing in the driver settings, with Greyscale as the colour setting and the same plain paper or envelope restriction.
Epson Status Monitor has to be enabled, since the whole flow runs through its dialog, and someone printing over a network may have to cancel the job at the printer rather than on the computer. The restriction that causes the most trouble is that this covers printing from a computer and nothing else. Epson states that while a colour cartridge is expended you cannot print faxes, make copies, or print from Epson Connect or a mobile device. If you are trying to photocopy a form with an empty yellow, there is no setting for that.
None of this applies to the 22 Epson EcoTanks we list. Ink goes in from a bottle, there is no cartridge to be expended, and you can top up the empty colour for a few dollars rather than replacing anything. It is the strongest practical argument for a tank machine over a cartridge one.
Canon: the black-only setting, and the button that silences the warning
Canon splits into two situations, and which one you are in depends on how many ink slots your machine has.
On a two-cartridge PIXMA, the one with a black FINE cartridge and a colour FINE cartridge, the driver has an Ink Cartridge Settings control on the Maintenance tab where you can choose Black Only rather than Both Black and Colour. Canon does recommend leaving both cartridges in the machine and not removing them until the ink runs out, so set it in the driver rather than by taking the colour out.
On a multi-tank PIXMA, the kind with a separate pigment black tank plus four or five dye tanks, Canon's own product experts have set out what it takes for a job to use the pigment black tank alone: the text has to be black, the paper setting has to be Plain Paper, duplex printing has to be off, and greyscale printing has to be off. That last condition is the one nobody guesses. On these machines, ticking greyscale is what pushes the job onto the dye tanks to build a composite grey, so turning it on is the thing stopping you printing.
Then there is the warning itself. Canon's method for turning off the ink level detection is to press and hold the Stop or Resume and Cancel button for at least five seconds and release. Canon adds caveats that are easy to miss: you have to do it once for each tank showing a warning, you may need to repeat it after the printer has been switched off and on, and detection comes back on by itself once genuine Canon tanks are fitted. On a machine with a display you will have seen E16 for ink has run out, or E13 for ink level cannot be detected, and a flashing ink lamp afterwards means detection is now disabled rather than that something new has gone wrong.
Know what that override actually does before you lean on it. It stops the printer reporting the problem, and it puts no ink in the tank. Printing on with a genuinely dry colour tank is the case Brother described, where the head pulls air instead of ink, and Canon's permanent-head machines have as much to lose as anyone's. Our Canon ink error guide covers the rest of the codes.
Why greyscale does not save you
The instinct is to tick greyscale or black and white in the print dialog and try again. It is the right move on Epson, where it is a required step. It is the wrong move on a multi-tank Canon, where Canon's own condition list says greyscale has to be off before the pigment black tank will work alone. And on the HP machines in group two it does nothing at all, because HP has said there is no way to bypass the requirement.
Greyscale is not the lever people expect because it only governs what gets sent to the printer. It tells the driver to render the page in grey instead of colour. It has no bearing on the servicing cycles that draw from every tank, and servicing is what the block is protecting. Whether grey comes out of the black cartridge or from a mix of colours is a separate decision the driver makes, which is why the same tick box helps on one machine and hurts on another.
A related complaint gets tangled up with this one. Plenty of printers use a little colour ink on documents that look black to you, either to deepen the black or as part of routine servicing, and that is not the same thing as refusing to print. If your complaint is that colour is draining while you only ever print documents, what the ink gauge is actually measuring is the more useful page.
This is not the firmware lock, and the numbers show it
People arrive at this problem having read about HP Dynamic Security and conclude they are the same thing. They are not, and telling them apart decides what you do next.
A firmware lock is about authentication. The printer reads the chip, decides the cartridge is not one it will accept, and refuses it. The cartridge can be brand new and full. An empty colour block is about hydraulics: the cartridge is accepted, recognised and genuine, and the printer will not run because it is out of ink. Only the first of those has anything to do with who made your cartridge.
Our catalogue makes the separation concrete. Of the 19 HP models that will not print with an empty colour, 8 carry no firmware lock at all in our records. They will happily take a third-party cartridge and still stop dead when the yellow runs out. Meanwhile 16 of the 30 models that do offer single cartridge mode are firmware lockable. A servicing rule and an authentication policy were written by different teams for different reasons, and the catalogue shows they do not track each other.
Tell them apart by the wording on screen. Cartridge depleted, replace cartridge or ink system failure points at the empty cartridge. Anything mentioning a non-HP, non-genuine, counterfeit, protected or damaged cartridge is the other problem, and the firmware DRM tracker lists which models do it. What the chip on the cartridge does covers how one component ends up responsible for both.
What it costs to get printing again
If you are on an HP in group two, what matters is the cheapest route back to a working printer. You need one colour cartridge, the empty one, and the price depends on which OfficeJet you own.
Across those 19 models the cheapest single colour cartridge runs from $14.00 to $38.00 at list price, with a median of $30.00. You are paying that to print a page of black text, and none of it is black ink.
Some practical consequences:
- Keep one spare colour on the shelf. What costs you a working day is running out of a single colour with no replacement in the house. On these machines a spare magenta is what keeps the black text flowing.
- Standard yield colours are often the sensible buy here. If your colour consumption is mostly servicing rather than photographs, you are paying for ink the machine will use slowly. Our page yield guide explains why the rated numbers overstate what you get.
- Compatibles are unaffected by any of this. The printer is counting how much ink is left, not who supplied it, so a third-party colour cartridge clears the block exactly as an HP one does, subject to your model's firmware position. The three ways to buy a cartridge compares them on price and risk.
On a group three machine the sum is different, because you can print without the colour at all. The tri-colour cartridges those 30 models take run $20.00 to $23.00 at list, median $22.00, so single cartridge mode buys you time rather than saving you money in the end.
If this has caught you out more than once, it is a fair reason to change machines next time. A bottle-fed tank printer cannot get into this state at all, and our cost per page ranking puts numbers on what the switch saves over a few years.
Common questions
Why will my printer not print black when only the colour cartridge is empty?
Because on most machines the print head is part of the printer and it services itself by pushing ink through the nozzles from every tank, not only the one you are printing with. HP puts it as ink being required in all cartridges to print and to perform periodic servicing to prevent clogs and other print quality issues. Brother describes what happens otherwise: print jobs and cleaning cycles would suck air from the empty cartridge and damage the print head. It is a hardware protection rather than an authentication check, so it has nothing to do with whose cartridge you bought.
Can I make my HP print black with an empty colour cartridge?
It depends on the cartridge number. On the 30 two-cartridge HP inkjets we list, which take numbers like HP 63, 65 and 67, you can: take the empty cartridge out and select OK when single cartridge mode appears. On the 16 models running HP 902, 910, 934 and 935, the printer simply carries on, and HP recommends replacing the empty cartridge quickly to avoid printhead damage. On the 19 models running HP 932, 933, 950, 951, 952 or 962, HP states that ink is required in all cartridges and that there is no way to bypass the feature. The full model lists are in the table above.
Does printing in greyscale get round an empty colour cartridge?
On an Epson yes, it is a required step in Epson's temporary black printing procedure alongside loading plain paper or an envelope. On a multi-tank Canon it does the opposite: Canon's conditions for using the pigment black tank alone include greyscale printing being switched off, because greyscale makes the driver build grey from the colour tanks. On the HP models where ink is required in all cartridges it changes nothing, since HP says there is no way to bypass that requirement.
Should I take the empty colour cartridge out?
It depends on the brand, and getting it backwards is common. HP's single cartridge mode needs the empty cartridge removed. Brother needs it left in: Brother says that if the empty cartridge is removed and the cover closed, the display will read Cannot Print. Canon recommends leaving both cartridges installed and not removing them until the ink runs out, and using the driver's Black Only setting instead.
How long can a Brother printer print in black and white with an empty colour?
Brother says approximately four weeks, depending on how many pages you print, in the mode it labels B and W Print Only. It ends early if you unplug the machine, which Brother warns may clear the memory, or if you remove the empty cartridge, which puts the display into Cannot Print. The window exists so a delivery can arrive, so order on day one rather than in week three.
Can I copy or fax while a colour cartridge is empty?
On an Epson, no. Epson states that while a colour cartridge is expended you cannot print faxes, make copies, or print from Epson Connect or a mobile device, because temporary black printing runs through the Windows or Mac driver and Status Monitor. Copying with an empty colour is the request that most often has no answer on any brand, since the workarounds live in the printer driver on your computer rather than in the machine's own front panel.
Is this HP Dynamic Security or DRM?
No. A firmware lock refuses a cartridge because of what the chip says about who made it, and it happens with a full cartridge fitted. This stops the printer because a tank is empty, and a genuine cartridge triggers it just the same. In our catalogue 8 of the 19 HP models that refuse to print with an empty colour carry no firmware lock at all, and 16 of the 30 models that do allow single cartridge mode are firmware lockable, so the two do not track each other.
Will a compatible or remanufactured cartridge fix it?
Yes, as far as this problem goes. The printer is counting ink, not brands, so any cartridge it accepts and reads as full will clear the block. Whether your model accepts a third-party cartridge in the first place is the separate firmware question, and our DRM tracker lists which models are affected.
Does this happen on ink tank printers?
Not in the same way. On the 22 Epson EcoTanks and 2 Canon tank machines we list, ink goes in from a bottle, so there is no cartridge to be declared expended and no purchase standing between you and a black page. The underlying hardware rule has not changed, since running a permanent head dry is still a bad idea, but the fix costs a few dollars and five minutes rather than a new cartridge.
Can I stop the printer using colour ink on black documents?
Partly, and it is a different question from the block. Setting the paper type to plain paper and choosing the black-only or greyscale option your driver offers keeps most document printing on the black cartridge. What you cannot switch off is the servicing that runs whether you print or not, which is where a fair share of colour ink goes on a lightly used machine.
Keep reading
- Is the print head in your cartridge or your printer the design that decides whether servicing needs every tank.
- It says low but the cartridge is not empty what the gauge counts, and why it declares empty early.
- What the chip on your cartridge does the component that reports empty and the one that authenticates.
- Clearing a Canon ink error the rest of the E codes and what each one wants from you.
- Ink tank vs cartridge the machine that cannot get into this state at all.
Sources
- HP Support, HP inkjet printers, Print with one or more empty ink cartridges, document ish_1929982-1413612-16, for the three cartridge groups and their behaviour: type 1 (HP 178, 364, 564, 655, 862, 902-920, 934, 935) can continue printing with one or more empty cartridges with HP recommending replacement as soon as possible to avoid printhead damage; type 2 (HP 932, 933, 950, 951-959, 962-969) requires ink in all cartridges to print and to perform periodic servicing to prevent clogs and other print quality issues, with no way to bypass this feature, and the three depleted-cartridge messages; type 3 (two-cartridge models including HP 60, 61, 63, 64, 65 and 67) can print if one cartridge is empty by removing it and selecting OK at the single-cartridge mode prompt. hp.com
- Brother Support, Print using only the black ink cartridge when the colour cartridges are empty, FAQ faq00002461_005, for B and W Print Only mode, the approximately four weeks of black and white printing, the B and W Print Only Replace Ink messages, the Cannot Print state that follows removing the empty cartridge, and the warning that unplugging the machine may clear the memory. brother.com
- Brother Support US, I am unable to print when one or more of the ink cartridges are empty, answer 128569, for the statement that the printer is designed to stop all printing operations when any cartridge reaches end of life to ensure the life of the printhead, and that continuing would mean print jobs and cleaning cycles sucking air from the empty cartridge and damaging the print head. brother.com
- Epson Official Support, Printing with Expended Color Cartridges, Windows, for the temporary black printing procedure, the plain paper or envelope requirement, the Black/Grayscale checkbox, the Print in Black prompt from Epson Status Monitor 3, the requirement that Epson Status Monitor is enabled, and the statement that while a color cartridge is expended you cannot print faxes, make copies, or print from Epson Connect or a mobile device. epson.com
- Epson Europe online guide, Temporarily Printing with Black Ink When Color Ink Cartridges are Expended, for the statement that when colour ink is expended and black ink still remains you can continue printing for a short time using only black ink and should replace the expended cartridges as soon as possible, and for the Mac Permit temporary black printing driver setting. epson.com
- Epson support FAQ, for the statements that the printer will not print if any ink cartridge is expended or removed, that Epson printers contain a permanent print head that needs to be charged with all colours to work, that a small amount of colour ink is used even when printing black text only, and that the charge keeps out air bubbles which can damage the print head. epson.com
- Canon Support, Check or Change Ink Cartridge Settings in Windows, article ART155685, for the Black Only and Both Black and Color ink cartridge settings and Canon's recommendation that you use the ink cartridges installed in the printer and do not remove them until the ink runs out. canon.com
- Canon Community, answers from Canon product experts on a PIXMA iP4900 thread, for the method of disabling ink level detection by pressing and holding the Resume and Cancel button for at least five seconds, the need to repeat it for each tank showing a warning and possibly after a power cycle, and the note that detection is re-enabled once genuine Canon ink tanks are fitted. canon.com
- Canon Community, Canon staff answer on printing with black ink only, for the four conditions required to use the pigment black tank alone: the original text must be black, the paper setting must be Plain Paper, duplex printing must be disabled, and the grayscale printing feature must be disabled. canon.com
- Canon Support, Getting the Ink Status Information, issue 8200141700, for the E16 ink has run out and E13 ink level cannot be detected codes and for a flashing ink lamp indicating that the remaining ink level detection function is disabled. canon.com
Last updated . This guide is general information, not a repair warranty. Printer menus and HP's model lists change, so confirm the exact steps for your model on the manufacturer's support site before you make changes.