The ''odometer'' shows greyscale as colour

Other than the printer just being completely broken (which is VERY likely by the sound of it) the only other thing that could explain this behavior is the computer using the wrong printer driver. Did you yourself install any drivers manually or did you just plug in the printer and Mac OS X installed everything for you?

Hi ethelinebake.

I thing the right way to ask would be..Can i print without colour, and the answer is, yes in Greyscale
I am from Denmark, mayby some of text and pictures not look simular to yours, but i think you can see what i mean - ok
Go to controlpanel ->Printers (or Printers and fax), right cklick on your printer -> click on "Print Preferences"(see pricture Fig. 1 ("Udskriftsindstillinger" = "Print Preferences"))
Now you get a new menu, cklick on "Adwanced" (see picture Fig. 2 ("Avanceret" = "Advanced")), then select "Greyscale" ("Gr?skala" = "Greyscale"), and then "OK".
All what i printed out after that, was in greyscale "colour".

...now you also have learnd a little bit danish too :o))

If the test page is working in colour then it's most likely your printer settings. Go into the settings when printing and ensure that greyscale or black/white printing is not turned on.

No, Canon does not have this facility. Also mostly greyscale is not light black but rather a mixcture of the 3 primary colours. You should have a reset/resume button on the printer - hold this in for a slow 5 seconds to de-activate ink warnings per cartridge that is giving alarms. Proceed carefully and only print text that is black so that the colour printheads do not burn out.

Print out a test print to see what comes out. If the printer is printing the colour blocks then the printer should be OK. If not then check the colour inks to make sure they are OK. Then run a full cleaning cycle and reprint the test sheet. Keep doing this until the inks are printing OK then run an alignment test and adjust as necessary. Next check the settings of the print driver to make sure that you have not defaulted to Black & White or Greyscale printing only. Also check the printer to make sure that the setup is OK and no defaults to Black & White / Greyscale printing have been set. If all this is OK then the most likely culprits will be the interface lead to the PC / Mac. Check that this is inserted and secured correctly at each end and is not damaged. If this is OK then uninstall the printer driver and download and install the latest printer driver from HP support at the following link

http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/softwareCategory?product=61236&lc=en&cc=uk&dlc=en&lang=en&cc=uk

Simply choose your operating system to proceed.

Once installed reboot the PC / Mac and all should be OK.

Check the printer settings in "Control Panel", "Printers" are not set to "Greyscale" or "Black & White".

Have you tried configuring the paper options for the type of paper you are using?

just go to printing preference set to color and not to grayscale

Your printer will keep using the color cartridges to keep the printing head working even if you don't print in color. If you need to print only in greyscale, buy a cheap HP printer (Printer only, not a PSC) and remove the color cartridge.

When choosing greyscale you should also have the option to "print using black print only" I am assuming you are using WIN XP START BUTTON CONTROL PANEL PRINTERS select the default printer right mouse click select properties select the printing preferences button select the color tab check the greyscale box the below that select the print in black ink only. I know this works because I just set it up for a customer yesterday. Good Luck, Tim