Hp Printer Says Printing Document but Nothing Happens

Applied science is weird sometimes. I can control mythermostat with my vox, only somehowprinters feel just as disruptive and unreliable as they were 10 years ago. If your printer is throwing you lot an mistake (or merely ignoring your demands entirely), here’s how to troubleshoot the problem so you can go dorsum to work.

Check Your Printer’s Error Lights

Frustrating equally they can be, printers practice sometimes tell yous what the problem is and then you can avoid trial-and-erroring your way through the troubleshooting procedure. Your printer may be showing an mistake message through a series of cryptic flashing, colored lights on the printer itself.

It isn’t ever clear which lights mean what, though, so you may need to check the manual to decode what your printer is saying. If you lost the manual, you can unremarkably download a PDF copy from the manufacturer’s back up page for your printer.

Once you’ve figured out the fault—east.thou., printer jam or no ink—spring down to the corresponding section of this guide to diagnose it further. (If your printer isn’t showing an mistake, keep reading.)

Clear the Printer Queue

Sometimes, your computer’due south print queue can go jammed up with former documents that failed to print for one reason or another, holding up the document you need right at present.

Right-click on the printer icon in Windows’ notification area, then choose
Open All Printers
to encounter a list of currently queued items. In macOS, you tin encounter the queue fromArrangement Preferences > Printers & Scanners > Open Print Queue. Correct-click any old items and clear them to get things chugging once again.

Alternatively, in Windows, yous can restart the print spooler, which volition try to print those documents as if they were only added to the queue (so you don’t have to clear them).

At that place are a few ways to do this, but the easiest is probably from the Command Prompt. Open the Showtime card, search for “Command Prompt,” right-click the pick that appears, and choose
Run Equally Administrator. And so paste in the following commands, pressing Enter after each ane:

net stop spooler

del %systemroot%\System32\spool\PRINTERS\* /Q /F /S

cyberspace showtime spooler

With any luck, this will bring your printer back to life and y’all’ll get the document you lot’ve been waiting for.

Solidify the Connectedness

This may audio silly, only if I had a nickel for every hour I’ve wasted troubleshooting something that wasn’t plugged in, I’d be halfway to buying a Snickers bar. Ensure the USB cable is plugged in snugly at both ends, and that the power cable is plugged into the wall. You never know when someone unplugged it to charge their phone without telling you.

If yous’re trying to
print over Wi-Fi, try plugging your computer in via USB. If that works, you know the trouble exists with the Wi-Fi connexion and can focus your effort in that location.

Is your printer getting a good enough point? See if the printer shows up in yourrouter’s network list, or endeavour moving the printer closer to the router to see if it’s just out of range. No joke, my begetter-in-police’due south printer doesn’t work unless all the upstairs doors are open, because they impede the already-weak Wi-Fi signal.

Ensure You lot Take the Right Printer

Over again, this may seem basic, but are you sure you lot’ve directed the document to the correct printer? If you’ve used your estimator with multiple printers—say, if you become back and forth between your habitation and part, or if you just got a new printer at home—Windows may be trying to send documents to the wrong printer.

Try printing the document once again, and be sure to chooseFile > Impress from the carte rather than using a shortcut. Then, pay close attention to the options that appear—if the drop-downwards menu shows a dissimilar printer than the ane y’all desire, click it to select the correct printer earlier standing. In some programs, like Google Chrome, y’all may even need to click
Run across More
for a full list of connected printers.

Install the Drivers and Software

When you plug a printer into your PC, Windows will usually catch the necessary drivers for you. But in rare cases, you may demand to head to the printer manufacturer’s website, look upwards the support page for your model, anddownload the driver or software package manually—and then if you haven’t washed and so, try that at present.

Add together Printer

If y’all’re using your printer over Wi-Fi, you may need to add together it to Windows’ list of available printers earlier Windows will offer information technology as an choice. In
Windows 10, head toSettings > Devices > Printers & Scanners and click the
Add a Printer or Scanner
button. If yous’re even so using Windows 7 (you shouldn’t exist), this is underControl Panel > Devices and Printers.

On a Mac, become toSystem Preferences > Printers & Scanners and click the plus sign. Your PC should search for printers on the network, and when information technology finds the one y’all’re looking for, click on information technology to add together the printer to your list. Now, you should be able to print a certificate.

Check that Paper Is Installed (Not Jammed)

I’one thousand going to approximate you’ve already ensured paper is in the tray, just but in case: put newspaper in the tray. Sometimes, though, printers are finicky—there may be paper loaded, but if the printer can’t grab hold, it’due south going to think it’s empty. Effort removing the paper tray, re-adjustment the paper, and sliding it back in.

In other instances, at that place may be some paper jammed in the mechanism. Ordinarily your printer will tell you and then, and you just demand to open the access console and pull the crumpled paper out. (Again, you may need to refer to your manual if yous aren’t sure where it opens up.)

In some cases, your printer can say in that location’s a paper jam fifty-fifty if yous don’t run across a sheet of paper stuck in the mechanism. When that happens, you may have smaller $.25 of paper or other remainder stuck inside the rollers that you tin can’t see. This means you would have to remove some of those components to articulate the problem. If you aren’t comfy doing then, bring it into a PC repair shop for assistance.

Dabble With the Ink Cartridges

If your printer tells you lot it’due south out of ink, only youknow it isn’t, in that location are a few things you tin can do. First, the print caput may be clogged or muddied, and you can make clean it out through your printer’s built-in cleaning routine (which you’ll find detailed in the manual).

Alternatively, if your printer’s heads lie on the ink cartridges themselves—the petty copper strip where the ink comes out—you can blot it with a wet newspaper towel to clean information technology up. Once ink starts to flow more freely onto the towel, give it a quick dab with a dry paper towel earlier re-inserting the cartridge.

If you take alight amplification by stimulated emission of radiation printer, you may be able to get a scrap more toner out of the cartridge by shaking information technology from side to side, then re-inserting it.

It’south besides possible your printer just doesn’t realize you put in new ink cartridges. If information technology doesn’t find new ink automatically, there may be a setting on the printer that allows you to “reset” the fill levels. Bank check your printer’s manual to see how on your specific model.

Remember that certain third-political party cartridges may cause issues, too, so try genuine cartridges from the printer manufacturer to run into if they work better.

Run the Printer’south Self-Test

If y’all still tin can’t figure out the trouble, it may help to run a few diagnostic tests. Both your printer and your reckoner tin print examination pages that may aid you narrow down your issue.

You tin can normally run your printer’due south self-test past pressing a serial of buttons equally the printer boots upwardly, which you’ll find outlined in your printer’south manual. Windows’ test pages tin be printed past heading toSettings > Devices > Printers & Scanners. Select your printer, and so click
Manage >
Print a Test Page.

If your printer’s own test page comes out fine but Windows throws an error, y’all can be reasonably sure you take a software problem. If the printer can’t fifty-fifty print its own exam folio, and then yous’ll want to focus on repairing the printer rather than driver or software issues. If you’re lucky, your printer may fifty-fifty give you a test folio with an fault code or other information on it you can decipher.