topic Re: How to print using only black ink on a Mac? Impossible? in Desktop Inkjet Printers

PIXMA TS8320 How to print using only black ink on a Mac? Impossible?

armandhammer — Tue, 05 Sep 2023 12:49:42 GMT

This is a very specific problem. Please read this thoroughly, as I'm sure many of you will misunderstand what I am asking.

Printer: PIXMA TS8320

Computer: Mac running OS 10.15.4 Catalina

Problem: When I select "Black and White" printing, the printer still uses the color ink cartridges. So even if I NEVER select to print anything in color, my color cartridges become depleted. To be clear, the documents are printing in monochrome, not color -- but the printer is mixing color inks to achieve black and grey tones.

When I print the same documents to the same printer from my Windows PC and select "Print as grayscale" NONE of the color ink is used. I am verifying this with a microscope. On documents printed from Mac, it's very clear that the "grey" is actually made up of a bunch of tiny color dots. On the ones printed from Windows, all of the dots are black.

So this is somehow a problem particular to Canon's current Mac printer drivers. Note that older instructions on how to fix this issue do not work. I called Canon and they said they are aware of the issue, but that it's up to Apple to fix it -- according to the Canon support rep, Canon only provides printer hardware details to Apple and it's actually Apple that writes the drivers for Canon printers. I filed a bug report with Apple months ago but they have not responded.

Does anyone have a solution that works with my printer on the latest version of Mac OS? Right now I'm having to print all of my black and white documents (90% of what I print) using Windows, which is really inconvenient.

Canon really needs to accept responsibility that they are shipping printers that don't actually do true Black and White printing when hooked up to a Mac. They should develop alternative drivers for Mac users to install that work properly, as Apple's drivers included with the OS are faulty when it comes to black and white printing.

Re: How to print using only black ink on a Mac? Impossible?

jrhoffman75 — Tue, 07 Apr 2020 12:05:40 GMT

Hello. Welcome to the forum.

Have you downloaded the March 2020 Setup software for the printer?

Re: How to print using only black ink on a Mac? Impossible?

armandhammer — Fri, 10 Apr 2020 06:07:45 GMT

I just checked some more (original color) test prints in B&W and they no longer show the color dots. It's all black now. When I first bought this printer back in February I had the "printing in b&w uses color inks" issue and only now got around to posting about it. Maybe a recent Mac OS update fixed it?

Re: How to print using only black ink on a Mac? Impossible?

adrianaestivill — Sat, 08 Aug 2020 17:42:57 GMT

Hello, I have the same problem, I can't get my mac to use only black ink.

Where do I download this setup software from?

Thank you.

Re: How to print using only black ink on a Mac? Impossible?

adrianaestivill — Sat, 08 Aug 2020 17:50:05 GMT

How did you solve it?

Re: How to print using only black ink on a Mac? Impossible?

Danny — Sat, 08 Aug 2020 20:19:39 GMT

Hi, adrianaestivill! You can download the latest driver and software for your PIXMA TS8320 right HERE courtesy of our friends at Canon Canada.

Hope this helps!

Re: How to print using only black ink on a Mac? Impossible?

frost_journey — Sat, 02 Sep 2023 18:16:09 GMT

For me the thing that finally worked is unchecking and then checking again this "Black & White" option (check out this screenshot). My mac OS is 12.2.1 (Monterey)

Re: PIXMA TS8320 How to print using only black ink on a Mac? Impossible?

martingolding — Thu, 03 Oct 2024 16:32:38 GMT

This is not specific to just one printer, I have recently changed printers and have the same issue. Printing from windows is fine, but any apple device is unable to print with any amount of control; Either it is not possible to print black ink only, or randomly with ios devices, they will always try to use the rear tray for printing images.