Problem with hp printer

[bobescalin2005]

I have a problem with my print driver (that`s what i think). The system (Ubuntu 9.04 Desktop Edition) installed hplip 3.9.2, and my printer is HP Deskjet 3845.

The print have two cartridge one color and one black. The color one is empty and the black one is new. When i want to print something black, the printer use the color one (i can see this because it use a transparent yellow) and i cant print with the black.

The printer is ok, i installed in windows and work just fine.

I found a section on HPLIP site:

8 ("Required") A downloadable driver plug-in is required for printing support. ("Optional") A downloadable driver plug-in is optional for printing support and may increase the speed, quality, or other aspect of printed output. ("No" or "None") A driver plug-in is not required nor available. Driver plug-ins are released under a proprietary (non-open) license and are not part of the HPLIP tarball release.

I installed the plugin with the command:

sudo hp-plugin

but the same think.

Any ideas?

[D-cat]

Are you sure to enter the printer properties and under the color model section select "grayscale"?

Simply checking print in black & whaite (or grayscale) in an application yet not selecting grayscale in the printer setting may output grayscale to the driver from tha app, bet the driver will still process its input according to the default settings, usually RGB color, which means the printer will use the color cartridge. Setting grayscale in the printer settings should force the driver to use the black cartridge only.

[bobescalin2005]

I think i solved the problem! In the HP Device Manager i found this on Print Settings:

"Printout Mode" and selected "Normal Draft Grayscale (Black cartridge)"

and now print only black.

It has the following options in Printout Mode:

Draft (Color Cartridge)
Draft Grayscale (Black cartridge)
Normal (Color Cartridge)
Normal Grayscale (Black cartridge)
High Quality (Color cartridge)
High Quality Grayscale (Black cartridge)
Photo (Color Cartridge, on photo paper)


I don`t get it one think: If my text document is using for example, some color text, i have to select Normal (Color Cartridge) and the problem is it is not using the black cartridge at all, only color (for a few lines colored).

I mean, when I want to print a mix page, the print to use black from the black cartridge and not from the Color Cartridge.

Cheers!

[D-cat]

I know what you mean. With some (cheaper?) printers, it's either color or black cartridge, but not both. In those cases, if you look real close at the "black" print using the color mode, you'll see it is actually a really dark brown from mixing all three (CMY) colors in a heavy saturation. I don't think there's anything to be done about it, but I'm really not all that knowledgeable on the subject; I just know I've seen it before... and I think it was with an HP printer to boot.