Everything is Black and White... there are no shades of gray

September 28, 2006 10:26 PM

Printing in black and white on an HP PSC 1610 from a mac. I can't believe that this is so hard to do, but I must be missing something.

My HP PSC 1610 is connected to my Airport Express via USB, and I am printing to it wirelessly. Everything works fine, but I'm out of color ink right now and can't be bothered to buy more. Can't I just choose to have the printer print colors as shades of gray? I've Googled, looked in Help, etc, but I don't see anything that even resembles this option. Please help!

posted by rossination to computers & internet (6 comments total)

I may be completely wrong, but I thought that some printers out there will refuse to print anything if one cartridge is out of ink. If this is the case for yours, maybe you can take your empty cartridge out, shake it a little, and replace it?* Sometimes this will give you just enough ink for the cartridge to no longer be considered "empty," and you'll be able to print again.

* ANAINE: I Am Not An Ink Cartridge Expert, I have no idea if this is bad or not, but it's worked for me in a pinch.
posted by pricklypear at 11:38 PM on September 28, 2006

How about this: In the Print dialog, choose "ColorSync" from the popup menu (it starts out at "Copies & Pages"), and set "Quartz Filter" to "Black and White" or "Gray Tone".

Haven't tried it myself--I only have a B&W printer--but it might work. Assuming, as pricklypear says, that the printer will even allow you to print without color ink present.
posted by xil at 11:39 PM on September 28, 2006

Sorry, should have mentioned this before - I tried your suggestion, xil, with both "B&W" as well as "Gray Tone" - neither worked. Thanks for the suggestion, though.

Pricklypear - black printing is still fine, so I don't think that's sthe problem.
posted by rossination at 11:59 PM on September 28, 2006

If you have a 'PDF printer description' installed you can 'print to PDF'. You then have the option of 'gray tone' when you choose 'ColorSync'. The colours are rendered as greyscale in 'Preview' and so your printer should print them that way. An extra step, I know… but worth a try.
posted by tellurian at 12:45 AM on September 29, 2006

Oh… the driver is available here.
posted by tellurian at 12:52 AM on September 29, 2006

I have a HP PSC 1210 on a PC, but I have the same problem.
The only way I know around this is to take out the color cartridge and print with just the BW one in. There will be error messages but it should work.
posted by brockerst at 5:23 AM on September 29, 2006