Quick SupportPrinter Test Page
One sheet of A4 that answers the question you actually have: is it out of ink, is the head blocked, or is the printer itself going? Hit print, then read the sheet against the guide below.
Print it at 100%, on plain paper, with any "draft" or "eco" mode turned off — draft mode skips ink on purpose and will show you a fault that isn't there.
Printer Test Page Print at 100% on plain paper · draft mode off www.edspcs.com/tech-zone/printer-test 1 · Each ink on its ownA band that prints pale, streaky or not at all is that cartridge. The light row runs out first. Cyan Magenta Yellow Black 2 · Mixed coloursEach of these is two inks together. If a mix is wrong but both its inks printed cleanly above, the head is mixing badly rather than running dry. Red (M+Y) Green (C+Y) Blue (C+M) 3 · GreyscaleEight steps from nearly white to solid black. You should be able to see a difference between every pair. A colour cast here means the printer is mixing colour to make grey — check the black cartridge. 5% 15% 25% 40% 55% 70% 85% 100% 4 · Alignment and streakingThe lines should be straight, evenly spaced and unbroken. Gaps across the same place on every line are a blocked nozzle; wavy or doubled lines are the carriage. 5 · Fine textAll four lines should be sharp and fully formed. Broken letters in the smallest line only is normal wear; broken at 10 pt is a real problem. 10 pt — The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. 0123456789 8 pt — The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. 0123456789 6 pt — The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. 0123456789 4 pt — The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. 0123456789 |
Reading Your Printout
- One colour band missing or very pale
- That cartridge is empty or the head for it is dry. Try the printer's own cleaning cycle once — twice at most, because each one uses a surprising amount of ink — and print this page again. Still pale? It's a cartridge.
- White streaks through everything
- Blocked nozzles. Run the head clean, then leave it an hour and try again — sometimes the ink needs time to soften what's dried in there. If a printer has sat unused for months, this is what you'd expect.
- Lines wavy, doubled or ghosted
- Alignment. Every printer has a head-alignment routine in its menu or its desktop software — run that rather than replacing anything.
- Bands or smears in the same spot on every sheet
- On a laser that's usually the drum or a dirty roller; on an inkjet it's often ink on the feed path. Worth bringing in before it marks everything you print.
- Everything prints perfectly
- Then the printer and the cartridges are fine, and whatever you're chasing is in the computer, the driver or the file. Keep the sheet — it's the proof.
This isn't a nozzle check
A proper nozzle check is generated by the printer itself and fires each nozzle in a known pattern — no web page can produce one. It lives in the printer's menu (usually under Maintenance or Setup) or in the maker's desktop software, and it's worth running alongside this sheet if the results here are confusing.