How to Turn Off the Color Cartridges

By James Stone

Turning off the color cartridges on your printer allows you to print documents in black ink only. This saves your expensive colored ink for important print jobs. Every printer has its own preference settings which are accessible to Windows users. However, a convenient shortcut is to use "grayscale," which prints in black ink only and disables the color ink cartridges until the setting is changed back to color. Removing the color ink cartridges will do the same thing on some printers, but other printers won't work if the cartridges are missing or if the colored ink level is low.

Click the Windows "Start" button and then click "Devices and Printers."

Right-click your printer and click the "Properties" option from the menu.

Click the "Advanced" tab. Click the "Printer Preferences" button.

Click the "Color" tab and then click the "Print in Grayscale" check box to print in black ink only.

Click the "OK" button on each dialog box to apply the changes and close the windows.

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