One of the most common problems that people have with their printer is that it begins to start printing in pink.
This doesn’t necessarily mean that the whole paper will be pink, it might only be a faint pinkness to the overall page. However in some cases, it could be that your printer has completely changed from printing in black ink to printing in pink ink.
Fortunately, this is a pretty common problem that has a simple resolution. Let’s look at some of the reasons your printer might be printing in pink, and what you can do to fix it.
Why is my printer printing pink?
The most common cause for a printer to be printing ink pink is an issue with your ink cartridges. The likeliest problem is that you’re just running low on a certain colour of ink, which is causing the printer to substitute this with a pink colour, or magenta.
Of course, the easiest fix to this and the first thing you should check for is your ink levels. Is one of the cartridges running low on ink in comparison to the rest?
If so, then this could be the easy fix that you’ve been looking for. Replace all of your colours with new ink cartridges and this may fix your problem completely without having to worry about anything else.
However, in some cases this might not be the solution to your problem, and there many be another cause for your pink printing. So, let’s look at a few more reasons why your printer might be printing pink.
A Clogged Nozzle/Printhead
Another cause that might be causing your printer to print in pink is that one of the coloured cartridges cannot release ink properly because the nozzle is clogged. The majority of printers actually have a nozzle check feature that you can use to find out whether your printer has a problem with a clogged nozzle.
For example, in an Epson printer, you can simple go to Utilities and then Nozzle Check, which will help you find out if this is where your issue lies. This is a fairly common issue with Canon Pixma’s, which are some of the best photo printers.
Fortunately, this is an easy fix. You should have a clean function on your printer which you can try first. You may also need to try a little isopropyl alcohol, which is what we used to clean a print head.
If you’re just getting an unnatural shade of pink, then the culprit is likely to be a lack of cyan ink. If you replenish this, then that should fix the problem.
Computer Hardware
In some scenarios, there may actually be a problem with the hardware that you’re using with your printer. For example, for people who are using a Macbook and the Mac Operating System, there have been reported of issues printing after having updated to the newer version of Mac OS.
If this has happened after you’ve recently updated your laptop, then try reverting back to your previous update to see if this fixes things. If not, then it is unlikely that the update is the cause of your problems.
My laser printer is printing in pink
If you have a laser printer that is printing in pink, then this is going to be a bit of a different issue for you, with a different solution. As you’re obviously aware, a laser printer doesn’t use an ink cartridge, instead using toner. However, this is unlikely to be the problem for laser printers.
The most common problem that may cause a laser printer to print in pink is damage to the actual drum unit of the laser printer itself. The first thing you’re going to want to do is clean the drum unit itself. If you don’t know how to do this, check out this drum unit cleaning guide.
Conclusion
Fortunately, most of the time it’s a quick fix to solve a printer that is printing in pink instead of black, or another colour. However, sometimes it can be a little more complex, and you might need to take your printer to a professional to get it sorted out.
Thankfully, most of the time there is a solution to your printers issues that can be resolved with a bit of detective work!
