imageCLASS MF726Cdw Black print is light and gray

[Gh0stly]

Running a Dell XPS Windows 11 23H2 Office 2023 printing from Word 2023 black print is light and grey instead of Black - any clues on getting a darker print to Canon MF726CDW (networked).

[shadowsports]

Greetings,

With the exception of high-humidity environments, printing which appears lighter than it should is often related to the toner, paper type or print density settings.  

Toner: Using Canon toners is recommended.  Using 3rd party products can have unexpected results.  The remaining toner level (if low) can also affect print quality.

Paper type.  Make sure your paper is correct type and quality.  

Print Density settings don't usually need to be adjusted.  You can adjust toner density following the instructions in the printer's User Guide. 

You can download the manual from the product's Support Portal.:

Canon Support for Color imageCLASS MF726Cdw | Canon U.S.A., Inc.

See troubleshooting, when you cannot print properly:

[Gh0stly]

Thank you. I will investigate but if I print from a Windows 10 machine and office 2017 the print is normal. Suspect it is a windows thing, or driver may need updating. I will add more info if I find anything else.

[Gh0stly]

first, windows 10 also prints gray, not black. second the manual download zip file contains bad html files, the index is blank, content is un-usable. I reviewed my collection of status documents I author each week and back over time the black print quality has been declining so i believe the black cartridge may be bad, my last replacement came from Amazon and the Canon store, but I noted at the time the magenta cartridge would leave small traces/drops of magenta across the page. With the black cartridge at 30% I will procure a replacement and see if that resolves.

[Gh0stly · Accepted solution]

Obtained and installed new black cartridge. Print is fine. Old cartridge was 30% but becoming illegible faded. Did obtain the old cartridge from the Canon store on Amazon October 2021. Odd that at 30% it was failing, maybe due to pandemic.