Word 2013 Stopped Printing Black Using An HP Printer

Is the color of the font set to Automatic or Black.  Whichever one it is, try the other.

I was trying to use Word to print Membership Cards for a Non Profit I am on the Board of.  I was printing them 2-Up on 4x6 Index Cards. 

I suspect that's the answer right there. As Doug previously mentioned, some inkjet printers go into "photo mode" when you print anything smaller than Letter size, using a composite black instead of ink from the black ink cartridge. If the mix is not exactly right (one color is low), you'll get an off-black. In your case, it sounds like you have a separate black cartridge for photos, and the fact that that was empty may well be relevant. Looking at http://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c02944025, I see that you do have two black ink cartridges, and I suspect that replacing the "photo" black is what is required. It would appear to be this one: http://www.amazon.com/HP-PhotoSmart-Photo-Black-Cartridge/dp/B00BNYC01O. (Reviewers seem not to be very happy with this printer!) The thread at http://h30434.www3.hp.com/t5/Ink-Toner-Cartridge-Printhead-Issues/C7520-Black-Ink-Cartridge-Replacement/td-p/2757493 discusses the differences in black ink cartridges.

While I have not “been around since computer chips were carved in flint” I have been around since they had “Turbo Buttons” on PC’s.

Apparently nobody is really reading what I wrote, the same way the Microsoft Chat Techs were not reading what I was typing either.

So let’s start over.

I was trying to use Word to print Membership Cards for a Non Profit I am on the Board of.  I was printing them 2-Up on 4x6 Index Cards.  It involves JPG graphics and Word Text over a JPG picture and was working quite well when I started.  The first ones were not quite right so I was resizing and spacing the text and graphics and printing cards one at a time as I measured and check where the cuts lined up.

Then for no reason at all the printing started to go bad, I thought it was the HP Printer, except it showed enough Ink and gave no Error Messages.  The “Set Up” or “Photo” Black Ink Cart was empty, but surely it was not the cause as I had another Black XL Ink Cartridge installed, the "Set Up" Cart has been empty for awhile with no issues before.  I went out to buy a narrow 564 Black Ink Cart, but it is wider than the “Set Up” Cart and would not fit.  Removing the “Set Up” Cart gave Errors and the Printer refused to work, so I slowly went about eliminating all issues and even went so far as to install 4 All New Ink Carts, still it failed.

At some point I decided to use Microsoft Paint to print the exact same graphics and see how it turned out, it turned out just fine.  I tried Word again and again it failed to print Black Ink.  In all my years I’ve seen a lot of really stupid things happen, but nothing like this.

So one by one I tried all the Advanced Settings in Word for Print.  None of them changed ANYTHING.  I hadn’t changed anything before, but Word likes to automatically change things on its own.  I don’t know what Microsoft Engineer thought Calibri 11 is best, but they are stupid and wrong.  No matter how many times I change the Font, even save the changes, Word will change it back.

The ONLY work around I have found is to change the Member names and Membership Level in Word then SAVE it as a PDF and then use Adobe Reader to Print it as that actually works.  I should NOT have to do this.  Microsoft Word SHOULD work the way it was at the beginning of the day, but it won’t.  I should NOT have to pay another $99 to $149 to have Microsoft fix this issue when clearly they CANNOT.  Would I have gotten a refund if they failed to fix it, no not really.

I’ve seen Microsoft do some really stupid things lately.  Ever since Gates and Ballmer stepped down Microsoft has been one mistake after another.  My Windows 8.1 “upgrade” wiped out my Bluetooth capability so what used to be an easy Bluetooth transfer between Laptop and Cellphone now requires me to e-mail the pictures to myself and pull them from e-mail on my Laptop.

When I complained to Microsoft about Fresh Paint and wish they never removed Paint from Windows, they said Paint was there.  When I said it’s not on the list of programs Windows shows on my Laptop, Microsoft said I had to use Search to find it.  Sure enough Windows does not know it is there unless you Search for it, but it is and it works SO MUCH better than that craptastic Fresh Paint.

So here I am stuck with yet another stupid Microsoft problem, this one really stupid and nobody seems to know how to fix it.  Yes, I tried all the suggestions so far and nothing worked.  So what other solutions does anybody have?

I have never used Word Tables ever and never had issues, I can check, but doubt that is the issue.  I did an Online Fix that Microsoft said to do, including the Reboot and it failed.  HP does not see any problems and except for Word not printing black there aren’t any.

A Microsoft Script Monkey sitting in a Call Center in India asking me if the Black Ink Cart is installed is only going to **** me off.  I appreciate the help from the Forums as I guess Microsoft can’t be bothered to care.  I did ask for a Supervisor, but none came to the phone and I hung up.

I wish I had never upgraded my XP PC with Office 2000 Pro as that thing was all but bullet proof.

It’s not the Font Color.  I use Automatic all the time, only change it when I need to change a Font color.  The Letter I printed as a test was using Automatic and should have printed black, but it printed blue instead.

The initial problem did not involve the Font, it was graphics.  I have JPG’s which are the logos for the organization on one side.  The lettering in the JPG is black with a yellow glow outline, they were printed green with a yellow outline.

On the reverse side of the card is another JPG of a Pine Rockland photo.  In front of it is Text that uses white with a thin black as a color to make it stand out against a normally darker background.  However since Word is not printing black the picture is washed out green.

I did not change any settings to begin with, it was printing just fine at the start of the day, it stopped printing black while I was continuing to print.  I tinkered with the HP Printer, even changing ALL the Ink Cartridges, even though the ones in the Printer did have ink.  I did later play with the Advanced settings trying a few of them to see if that helped and it did nothing.

There has to be a reason why Adobe Reader and Microsoft Paint can print the same graphics just fine, but Microsoft Word refuses to use black ink to print them correctly.  As it is daily I have Word change stuff on me by itself, mostly it resets to Calibri 11 all the time, even when I have Saved my preferences several time.  Most of Word’s quirks I put up with but this one needs to be fixed and Microsoft is unwilling and unable to do that.

The PDF trick does work.

I saved the exact same Word doc file as a PDF file and had Adobe Reader print it instead.   It printed using Black Ink the way it should.  Editing in Adobe is not as easy as Word especially doing text over a picture.  There has to be a way to fix Word and put it back the way it was.  So clearly Microsoft Word is the issue and they will not even try to fix the problem.  I should not have to do this trick for every Membership Card I want to print.