Black dots left on prints from Pixma Pro-200

alexistate — Fri, 08 May 2026 18:59:48 GMT

Hi all, hoping someone here has seen this before because Canon support is stumped.

My Pro 200 is producing a small black/gray dots in roughly the same position on every print — left of center, top surface of the paper. It looks like a pen touching paper briefly, pinhead size, roughly circular but not perfectly so. Appears on all paper types, including plain cardstock and printer paper.

Here's everything I've already tried:

Multiple bottom plate cleaning cycles
Paper feed roller cleaning
Manual cleaning of platen protrusions with isopropyl alcohol (found significant ink and fiber buildup, removed it)
Cleaned the cartridge rail
Removed and wiped down the print head assembly exterior with a dry paper towel (removed a lot of ink)
Inspected and wiped the ink connection ring on the black cartridge
Enabled Reduce Abrasion setting
Ran a 100+ print job to see if it would work itself out — dots unchanged throughout

The dots are on the top surface of the paper, not the underside, which rules out the platen protrusions. Position is consistent — left of center — which makes me think it's a fixed contact point rather than random dripping. New black cartridge arriving tomorrow which I'll try next.

Has anyone seen this and found a fix? Really don't want to replace the printer over something this small.

topic Black dots left on prints from Pixma Pro-200 in Professional Photo Printers

Black dots left on prints from Pixma Pro-200