Canon i860 won't print black unless color is on the page

[dad]

I've got a crazy printer issue that just came up. My canon 860 inkjet now won't print out black unless there's color on the same page. I did a little bit of troubleshooting to figure out exactly what was going on.
Basically, if it's just black text on a page, it prints out a blank page. If you put any one word as any color, it prints out the whole page fine. For multi-page documents, each page must have one letter in color or it will print the page as a blank. Craziest thing I ever saw. I put new black ink cartridges in there and it didn't help. Ideas???

[Cassandra]

1. Uninstall and reinstall?

I had a similar problem in that printing from the internet or the scanner came out red, while printing from my office suite was fine. When I changed computers, I installed the printer information in the new machine and it was fine. So it wasn't the printer, just a software glitch.
Admittedly, your printer is more creative than mine, although mine is more romantic. Occasionally, at start up, the printer would spring to life and give me a page with a teeny little heart printed in black in the top left-hand corner. Hasn't done that since the reinstall. Perhaps it doesn't love me anymore.

[NewHampshireDem]

2. Clogged print head/nozzle on the black print head

I have an i850, which I believe is similar in most ways to your i860, and I'm basing my advice on that assumption and what I've been able to glean from checking a few other help boards for your particular problem.

If you haven't already, open the Print dialogue box and go to Preferences. Click on the Maintenance tab and run the Nozzle Check. My guess is that will turn up a problem. You can then run the Deep Cleaning to attempt to clean the head the easy way.

If that does not work, check the manual or do a search to find out how to disassemble and clean the print head--which really isn't as scary as it sounds. A little 'pop,' some Q-Tips and water, and a hopefully very little swearing.

Good luck! :wave:

[dad]

3. Fixed

I just wanted to let everyone know that uninstalling the driver, then downloading again from Canon's site and re-installing resolved this issue.
Thanks