The printer will not print. Here is why.

Printers are the most reliably infuriating object in any house. They work for months, then refuse on the one morning you need something urgently.

Here is what is actually going wrong, in the order worth checking.

The five-minute checklist

Work down this list before anything else. It solves the majority of cases.

1. Turn the printer off, wait thirty seconds, turn it on. Genuinely. Printers hold jobs in memory and get stuck, and a proper power cycle clears it. Not standby, and preferably unplugged from the wall.

2. Restart the computer too. Same reason.

3. Check the print queue. On Windows, Settings, Bluetooth and devices, Printers. Open your printer and look for stuck jobs. One failed document from Tuesday will block everything behind it. Cancel everything in the list and try again.

4. Check it is the default printer. Windows changes this by itself with some updates, and people spend twenty minutes printing successfully to a printer they got rid of in 2019, or to a “Print to PDF” entry.

5. Check the paper and the lid. Obvious, and it is genuinely the answer often enough to be worth including. Paper tray seated properly, no jam, all covers fully closed.

If it is a wireless printer

Wireless is where the majority of printer misery comes from.

Has the printer fallen off the Wi-Fi? Most printers have a network status page or a light. They drop off routinely, particularly after a power cut or a router restart, and nothing tells you.

Did your internet provider replace the router? Then the printer is still trying to connect to a network that no longer exists, and it needs setting up again.

Is the printer on a different network? Modern routers often present separate 2.4GHz and 5GHz networks. Many printers only support 2.4GHz. If your phone is on the 5GHz network, it may not be able to see the printer at all.

Is it in sleep mode? Some printers sleep so deeply they stop responding to the network entirely. Turn sleep off in the printer settings, or accept pressing a button to wake it before printing.

Wireless printers are convenient right up until they are not. If the printer sits near the computer permanently, a USB cable eliminates about 80% of all printer problems for around fifteen dollars.

If it prints blank pages

Almost always the ink or toner.

On inkjets, the print heads dry out if the printer sits unused for weeks, which is exactly how most home printers are used. Run the cleaning cycle from the printer’s menu or software. It may take two or three attempts.

Check the levels, and be aware that many printers refuse to print in black if a colour cartridge is empty, which is infuriating and deliberate.

Third-party cartridges are much cheaper and usually fine, though some printers reject them with firmware updates. If a printer worked with them and suddenly stopped, a firmware update is the likely cause.

If the quality is poor

Streaks or missing lines: run the head cleaning cycle, then the alignment.

Faded: low ink, or economy mode turned on in the printer settings.

Smudging on a laser printer: usually the fuser or a worn drum, and on a cheap laser printer that is often the point at which replacing it costs less than repairing it.

The driver problem

If nothing above works, the software connecting the computer to the printer is likely the issue, particularly after a big Windows update.

Remove the printer from Windows entirely, then download the current driver from the manufacturer’s own website, not from a search result advertisement. Many sites impersonate printer support and charge for free software or install unwanted extras.

Type the manufacturer’s address in directly: hp.com, canon.com.au, brother.com.au, epson.com.au.

Printing from a phone or tablet

iPhone and iPad use AirPrint, which needs a compatible printer on the same Wi-Fi network. If the printer supports it, it appears automatically. If it does not appear, the printer is either not AirPrint compatible or not on the same network.

Android uses a similar system, sometimes needing the manufacturer’s app installed.

If your printer does not support printing from a phone, that is often the strongest single reason to replace it.

If you are buying a new one

Some honest advice, because printer buying is full of traps.

The printer is cheap and the ink is not. A $79 printer with $90 cartridges is not a bargain. Work out the cost per page before you buy, not the cost of the machine.

Consider a tank printer if you print regularly. They cost more up front, perhaps $400 to $600, and use refillable bottles that work out dramatically cheaper. They also do not dry out in the same way.

Consider a mono laser if you mostly print documents. Around $150 to $250, toner lasts thousands of pages, and crucially it does not dry out when unused for two months. For a household that prints occasional letters and forms, this is usually the right answer and almost nobody recommends it.

Avoid subscription ink schemes unless you have read the terms carefully. Some will stop the printer working if the subscription lapses, including with cartridges you already own.

Buy one with an automatic document feeder if you scan more than occasionally.

Stopping it happening again

• Print something once a month, even a test page, so inkjet heads do not dry out
• Keep a spare set of cartridges before you run out mid-job
• If it lives beside the computer, connect it by cable
• Write the model number and the cartridge numbers on a label on the printer itself

When it is not worth saving

If it is more than about six years old, cartridges cost more than half the price of a new printer, and it needs coaxing every time, it has reached the end of a reasonable life.

Before replacing, though, it is worth having someone check whether the problem is the printer or the setup. A great many “dead” printers are perfectly healthy printers that fell off the Wi-Fi and were never reconnected. That is a ten-minute fix, and it is a common part of a home visit around Lake Macquarie.