Can't scan when out of ink

Try cleaning the print head.
How to Clean Clogged Printer Heads

Two possibilities come to mind:

1. There is a function in many printers that lets you print in the single colour of your choice. Check every tab and every "advanced..." dialog box you get when you are about to print. Then go to the printer's properties in the control panel and check whether there's anything like that
   
2. Many printers let you print black with black ink, OR alternatively make black by mixing the other three colours CMY. Look for that setting in the same places and deactivate it

It could be the print setting on your computer.
If you're using Windows, with your document open, go to File > Properties/Preferences. In the Print Setup tab, make sure to select "Print using all available ink" in the Ink Use section.
On Mac you can select Color in Print Setting in any expanded print dialog.

To print in all black, you can change a setting through the computer to tell the printer to only use the black ink. This is better than putting black ink where the color ink normally would go as that would cause the shading to be wrong and potentially ruin the documents.
If you have enough black ink in the printer, before you finalize the printing process make sure you have black and white only selected.
This will allow you to print without getting access to the ink cartridge holders.
Good luck hope this helps.

Inkjet printer inks are dye-based, and that's the reason.

Perhaps this will help explain things. You know those little boxes of food colouring you can buy in the supermarket - the ones that have four little bottles of colour - red, blue, yellow and green. Within reason you can combine these to turn white icing into most colours. Use nothing and the icing is still white or use everything and the icing will go a black-brown colour. Use a couple of drops of red and blue and you'll get purple.

But if you start with black icing, there's nothing you can add that will make it anything but black.

It's the same with your inkjet printer - because white is obtained by not having any ink print on the white paper. But of course that only works when the paper is white. Naturally you'll get different results on all colours of paper, decreasing as the paper gets darker in colour. Print blue on yellow paper and you should get green printing.

The only way to print in white is to do what commercial printers do - use opaque inks and include a white ink in the process. And as far as I know there's no commercial ink that will do that with an inkjet printer.

I can hear lots of you muttering "Rubbish. Of course you can print light colours on dark paper." Well all I can say is, have fun experimenting, but you won't be able to do it.

About the only way to achieve the sort of result you may be after is to print the job then trim it and paste it in place. For instance, if you want to print onto a black or dark-coloured T-shirt then print onto white transfer material, trim the print to size and iron it in place.

hi,

As you dont want to use the colour ink,When you give the print command you wil get the print properties page ,In that you can select black and white so that you wil not use up the colour catridge. It uses black catridge only.

thanx

DUMP IT,mine has been nothing but problems...spent fortune in inks and its hardly managed to print a thing...

remove printer driver. and reinstall its driver.

just take out the colour cartridge from the printer, then you will be able to print.

the only way i got mine printing was to replace the colour ink! sorry