out of color ink, but won't let me print black and white

[akqj9]

They want to force me to their site to buy an expensive color cartridge even though I never print other than black and white and my black ink cartridge is full. I HATE THIS PRINTER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  It is slow, noisy and annoying. NEVR AGAIN CANON!!!!!

[shadowsports]

You don't have to hate Canon. This clever little "undocumented" feature comes "factory" from ALL printer manufacturers. That little microchip on the cartridge... what do you think that's for? To make you buy more ink!

This is part of the game. Ink is a company's bread and butter. If you want black and white only, I'd invest in a good B&W only LaserJet.

[akqj9]

If they deliberately won't allow b/w printing when a color cartridge is out, they are lower than whale poop on the ocean floor. Canon sucks!

[akqj9]

I called there support lie and they told me the secret. Hold down the red STOP button for 10 seconds. Why should we havbe to do that????  Because they don't want us to know we don't need to buy more expensive ink from them.

[TCampbell]

As John points out... _every_ inkjet printer does this.  It’s not a Canon thing.

Ounce for ounce... inkjet printer ink is more expensive than fine perfumes, single malt scotch whiskey, and beluga caviar.

Years ago I bought my mother a color inkjet (Lexmark) because she *really* wanted a color printer.  But she’d use it (try to use it) only about once every three months.  Of course the nozzles would be dried out and no amount of cleaning would fix it... and there goes $75 on a new set of inks.   I’d buy and install a new set of ink cartridges, she’d print ONE piece of paper (usually a photo of one of the grandkids) and be happy with it... then ignore the printer for the next 3 months.  I told her it was costing me $75 per photo/page because of the clogging problem.

I took the color inkjet away (it was not a great printer anyway) — and replaced it with a black & white laser printer.  Laser toner is basically finely ground up plastic ... since it’s already a “dry” substance, there’s no drying out problems.  A single toner cartridge (usually around $75) is good for about 5000 average pages ... and some higher capacity cartridges do 10,000 or more.  The “per page” cost is VASTLY cheaper than inkjet (and it doesn’t have the drying/clogging problems).  

If you’re just printing B+W... consider switching to a laser.  For the odd occasion when you want to print a photo, you can either walk into a store or use an online service to have it lab printed and mailed to you.

I now use color inkjet ... but I use it enough to be worthwhile.

[akqj9]

Great advice. Next time laser b&w.

[Tiggerrr2018]

Its not just Canon... I purchased Epsons for years and switched to Canon to give it a try... I like both but found Canon easier to use.  With Epson I had to keep swapping out black inks when I changed paper from glossy to matte... sigh.  Both companies are good but all have their issues.

[Tiggerrr2018]

I purchase all my inks  now from (Removed link as per forum guidelines).  I purchase their Mustache brand and never had any issues with their inks and they are way cheaper to buy. I also buy their toners for my laser printers... and the service and shipping (free btw in Canada) is excellent and fast. 

I learned in the past with the use of Epson or Canon printers that they require more than just the black ink to print in B&W.  Other colours are actally used to give a full, beautiful black.  

Hope this helps.

[Tiggerrr2018]

Great advice... have you tried printing quality B&W photos on different kinds of photo paper on a laser printer? I am just wondering about the longevity of the ink? It would be nice to switch to a laser for B&W as its so much cheaper. 😉

[AllPrintersBlow]

This didn't work for my MF 644 CDW (where the MF could stand for something else) but pressing the stop button did eventually (I don't know how) to force it to print. Maybe this isn't a "greedy corp" tactic but just lazy and/or incompetent programmers. Anyway, I hate printing in general and rarely do it because it's such a headache and look forward to the day where this dying industry finally breathes its last breath.