What to Do If Your Printer isn’t Printing

Technology can be confusing at times. I can regulate my thermostat using my voice however, printers are the same way, apprehensive and insecure as they did ten years ago. If your printer is giving you an error (or completely ignoring your needs) Here’s how you can solve the issue so that you can go back to work.

Examine the Error Lights on Your Printer

As frustrating as they may be, however, printers will sometimes inform you what’s wrong to help you avoid tinkering with your method of troubleshooting. Your printer might be flashing an error message via flashing obscure or colored lights on the printer’s own.

It’s sometimes unclear which lights mean what it’s possible that you need to refer to the manual to figure out the messages your printer is sending. If you lost the manual, you may download a PDF copy of it from the printer’s support page for the printer you have. Or you can visit Simple Guide To Managing Printers In Windows 10 to find all kinds of solutions related to printers.

After you’ve pinpointed the error–e.g., the printer is jammed or ink not flowing, head to the appropriate section of this manual to determine the issue further. If your printer doesn’t show any error, continue following the guide.

Clear the printer history from Queue

Sometimes your printer queue could be jammed with old documents that have failed to print due to some reason or another and preventing you from printing the file you require now.

Right-click the printer icon within Windows the notification area and select Open All Printers to see the list of queued items. In macOS you can view the queue in the System Preferences > Printers & Scanners > Print Queue. Click on the right-click icon to delete any items you have and then clear them so that the queue churns once more.

In Windows, you can start the print spooler. This will attempt to print these documents as if they had just been added to the queue, so you don’t have to clean them.

There are many ways to accomplish this, but the most straightforward is probably via The Command Prompt. In the menu in Start, search for “Command Prompt,” right-click the option that pops up, and select Run As Administrator. Copy the following commands and press Enter after each of them:

net stop spooler

del %systemroot%\System32\spool\PRINTERS\* /Q /F /S

net start spooler

If you’re lucky you’ll see back your printer, and you’ll be able to print that document you’ve always wanted for a long time.

Strengthen the Connection

This might sound ridiculous however if I had an extra nickel for every minute, I’ve wasted trying to fix something that wasn’t plugged in, I’d have a chance to purchase the Snickers bar. Make sure you have the USB cable connected securely at both ends and ensure that you have the power cord connected to the wall. It is impossible to tell that someone might unplug it to charge their mobile without notifying you.

If you’re trying to print using Wi-Fi, try connecting your device via USB. If it works, then you know that there’s a problem with the Wi-Fi connection, and you can concentrate your efforts there.

Does your printer receive sufficient signal? Check if your printer is in your router’s networks list, or move your printer further away from your router to determine if it’s not in reach. 

Make Sure You Have the Correct Printer

This may sound simple, but are you certain that you’ve sent the document to the right printer? If you’ve been using your computer with several printers, for instance, that you switch between home and office or recently purchased a brand-new printer for your home–Windows could be trying to forward documents to the incorrect printer.

Print the document again. Make certain to select Print > File from the menu, rather than making use of the shortcut. Pay close attention to the options you see–if the drop-down menu lists an alternative printer to the one, you’re looking for choosing the right printer before proceeding. Visit howtofixmyprinter.com for finding the best printers. In some applications, such as Google Chrome, you may be required to select See More for a full list of printers that are connected.