Posted by Hugh Nations Signing Agents of Austin on 11/29/07 6:17pm
Msg #223654

Stupid techie question

I am going to show my abyssmal lack of knowledge by this question, but so be it.

If I am printing a black ink page on my color laser printer, does it use a combination of the color cartridges to achieve black, or does it just print from the black cartridge? Depending on the program (Word, PageMaker, Publisher), there are options to print in black, or print colors in black.

If I am printing a page with colors, and just want black, as in a fax, I choose one of those options. If, on the other hand, the page is entirely black, I don't bother. Does that mean I am using my expensive color cartridges unnecessarily?

Also -- and this is more involved -- the Outlook home page has developed the maddening habit of popping up continually in the middle of whatever program I am using. I can minimize it or close it, but it pops right back up. Restarting the computer sometimes helps, sometimes doesn't. My techie has been unable to fix it, which probably means I won't be referring to him as "my techie" much longer.

Reply by Dennis D Broadbooks on 11/29/07 6:47pm
Msg #223658

Regarding Your Outlook Problem...

...which version of MS Office are you running? If it's one of the later versions you can run a repair install. You may have to insert your original installation disk in order to accomplish the repair. Doing a Google search didn't produce any results for this particular issue.

Reply by MikeC/NY on 11/29/07 6:51pm
Msg #223660

It depends on your printer, but most are intelligent enough not to use the colors to create black - that's one of the reasons why in printers that have individual cartridges for each color (such as Epson and Canon), the black cartridge is twice the size of a color cartridge. HP usually puts all colors in one cartridge and black in another (which is a waste of color ink, IMO), but you still have more black ink available, probably becasue they know that's what you'll be using most of the time.

As for your Outlook question - do you have Outlook configured to start on the home page, and do you have it configured to automatically remind you of to-do and calendar items? Sometimes that combination can cause annoying behavior - hard to tell without knowing what version of Windows and Outlook you're running.

Reply by ReneeK_MI on 11/30/07 3:55am
Msg #223712

can you make black out of primary colors?

Now I'm curious about this - perhaps these inks have particular properties that enable them to do that, but as a general rule, if you mix all 3 primary colors (red, yellow & blue), you get brown.

Reply by MikeC/NY on 11/30/07 12:38pm
Msg #223787

Re: can you make black out of primary colors?

Dunno, you may be right about that. Art is not my strong suit. But keep in mind that we're not talking about primary colors, unless magenta and cyan have been promoted recently...

Reply by Carole Breckbill on 11/30/07 8:05am
Msg #223720

My HP All-in-One has a color and a black cartridge. Both are the same size. I got a message a few weeks ago that my black ink was getting low. Today, printing pictures for my Christmas cards in color, I got a message that my color cartridge was getting low. Good question - and one I've always wondered about. Most of the time I print black ink materials. Am I also using my color cartridge in these cases too?

Reply by MikeC/NY on 11/30/07 12:35pm
Msg #223783

Even though the color cartridge is the same size as the black, you've got three colors in it - so in reality, the black cartridge is larger (volume). When one color runs out, you have to replace the whole cartridge. That's why I prefer the printers that have individual cartridges for each color.

Some printers will continue printing in black if the color cartridge runs out, but I'm not aware of any that work the other way around.

Reply by Hugh Nations Signing Agents of Austin on 11/30/07 12:52pm
Msg #223790

The particular laser printer I was inquiring about has 4 cartridges: 1 black, 3 different colors.

Reply by MikeC/NY on 11/30/07 1:44pm
Msg #223807

As Renee pointed out, it may not even be possible to create black from the 3 color cartridges. So the answer is, no, you're not wasting color ink or toner if there's no color in the document you're printing.