Dear Geek,
My printer isn’t printing. How can I tell if my printer’s broken, or if it’s a problem with my computer?
Signed,
My Printer Ate My Homework!
Dear Best Excuse Ever!,
The bad news is your printer isn’t working. The good news is that you (or your kids) now have an excuse why their homework isn’t done! However, that excuse isn’t going to work forever, so one of the first things to do when your printer isn’t working, is to print a test page directly on the printer. Most new printers make it easy to print an internal test page through the menu system built into a digital display on the printer itself. Usually, you can find it under the “Utilities” page of the settings. If it won’t print the test page directly from the printer, it may be broken. If it’s new, contact the manufacturer. If it’s not, it’s most likely cheaper to buy a new printer than to have that one fixed.
If your printer prints a test page, it’s time to move onto the computer. Open Windows’ “Printer” dialogue box, and print a test page from there. Doing this checks if there is a communication problem between the computer and printer.
Windows 7: Go to “Start”, select “Control Panel”, then “Hardware and Sound”, then “Printer”. Right-click the printer you want to test, and click “Properties”. Choose the “General” tab, and click “Print Test Page”.
Windows 8: Move the cursor over the “Charms” bar, select “Search”, and click “Control Panel”. Select “View Device and Printers” from the drop-down menu. Right-click your printer, click “Printer Properties”, then click “Print Test Page”. If there is no “Print Test Page” button, you can open a different program (eg word processor, etc), and click “Print” under “File”.
If the printer starts working, check the printer configuration (which printer is chosen to print to) in the program you were trying to print from originally. If the printer still isn’t working, open up the “Print Queue” dialogue box in the “Windows System Tray”, in the bottom right-hand corner, to see if Windows can provide a reason for the problem. Sometimes a previous print job is the culprit (document was paused & is in the queue ahead of your print job). If this is the case, right-click the print job and select “Cancel Print Job” until your test print is at the top of the queue. If the document still fails to print, Windows should automatically generate an error message that may help explain the issue (eg. “Windows cannot connect to the printer”. If the test page won’t print it’s likely that, for whatever reason, your computer and printer are both working but aren’t communicating with each other. Check all cables and/or wireless connections. If all cables and/or wireless connections are secure, as a last resort you can uninstall the printer, then reinstall it. This should fix the problem.
If you have a question for our Resident Geek, send it to: geek@tbyd.ca. We’ll translate it from Geek-lish to English, so it actually helps!
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