HP 7660 missing black cartridge only selection.

[dano1]

Hey all.

 

This problem has have me very frustrated for the past 4 months. I

have tried everthing I can, but no matter what I do, my HP 7660 is

missing the "black cartridge only" option in the color tab of printing

preferences.

 

This of course means that I must either print "high quality greyscale"

meaning that I use color ink, or "optimize for photocopy or fax" which

prints black, but no grey.

 

There has got to be some way of getting the option to come up. I

talked to some guy at HP who didn't have a clue. He said he would

take it further up the ladder, but I never heard from him again.

 

Until then, I will be printing poor quality black text, or using gobs

of color ink on printing text with images, or any colored text.

 

Dan O.

[constance_cook]

Hi Dan:

 

Go to preferences, click the color tab, look for the little box that says "print in grayscale", put a check mark in that box, click OK at the bottom, go and you're all in black.

 

When you print documents, it will print in black without having to do this.

 

Conni

[dano1]

This is the same kind of thing I went through with the HP tech guy.

 

There are supposed to be three options for greyscale. High Quality, which uses color ink, black cartridge only, obvious what that means, and optimize for photocopy or fax, prints black, but no grey.

 

I do not have the middle option, black cartrige only.

 

Thanks anyway, but it's not much help,

Dan O.

[constance_cook]

Hi Dan:

 

Let's try one more time. Go to your color tab, click it. Then go down and click the grayscale box which activates your possibilities. On the 7960, the second choice is to use the black cartridge only. That works whether you have in the tritone grey cartridge or just the regular black cartridge.

 

I hope the 7660, which is the little brother works the same way.

 

Conni

[dano1]

Again, we go round and round.

 

The option does NOT exist. I have two options below my Greyscale radio button. I have "high quality" and I have "optimize for photocopy or fax". There is NO middle option.

 

Perhaps If I post a screen print.<div></div>

[dano1]

This is why I'm getting so frustrated. I've talked to several people and they all give me the same directions. Printing preferences, color tab, check greyscale, check black cartrige only.

 

I wish people knew that I've been working on computers for the past 18 years, and I know darn good and well how I am supposed to set the color options on a printer. I feel like I'm the only one who has had this problem. I haven't seen it talked about anywere else.

 

I owned an HP 5550 for a year, it was very simple to just set it to black cartrige only. I just got this new HP 7660 in January, and right away I realized something was awry.

 

This darn printer has been eating all my color ink on plain text documents, and anything that uses color or grey on a documented must be printe color or the optimize for photo copy or fax will trash the print.

 

Sorry if I seem a bit ticked off. I don't mean to get mad at you, it's just that I've been trying to solve this problem for the past couple of months and I often feel like I'm talking to a brick wall.

 

Dan O.

[john y.k. lee]

I'm not sure if this addresses your question, but here goes. The ONLY way that I can get my HP 7960 to print beautiful black and white pictures is to physically remove the color cartridges (57 and 58). This forces the printer to print in "backup" mode with the 59 cartridge only.

 

When I printed b/w pictures simply by pressing the "print in greyscale" option and while leaving all three cartridges in, the b/w pictures came out with a magenta cast. Only by physically removing the cartridges did the pictures come out correctly. This is despite pressing and clicking all the right options.

 

Hence, if you are trying to print b/w with the 59 cartridge, just pull the others out. If you are trying to print black only, just put the 56 cartridge in and leave the others out.

 

I hope this helps.

[constance_cook]

Sorry, Dan, about your dilemma but there is no way from reading your original question that we could know anything about your experience is there?

 

Right now I'm using a 7550 for documents and the 7960 for photos and it seemed to me when I looked at the 7660 that it would work like the 7960. I pull the grey cartridge from the 7960 to print documents after inserting the 56, black cartridge and it doesn't use the colored cells. Neither does the 7550.

 

So it sounds like the poster above has the only workable solution.

 

Conni

[constance_cook]

Gosh John!

 

Now I've had the requisite two cups of coffee and reread your post. I don't have to pull my color cartridges to get a cast-free B and W print. Even a guy who is not my best friend (husband of colleague who sells his work and does his own B and W printing) allowed as how he couldn't see the difference between a "real" B and W and one of the 7960's prints.

 

I do see a difference, not in color cast, but in other ways such as sharpness by using Epson's heavyweight matte paper. Those really look great. If you haven't tried it , do give it a whirl. It is also reasonably priced.

 

Perhaps I just got an exceptionally good sample but if you read Bob Atkins review, he too, is impressed.

 

Also, I got better results when I reinstalled my printers after I did the clean install on my old computer.

 

Conni

[constance_cook]

I went to my HP printing guru who said that when you put in the black cartridge (#56) it "tells" the printer to use only the black cartridge so you wnat to put that in when you print documents so that it doesn't use your color cartridge. When you put in the #59 cartridge, it uses that when you check mono on the 7960 but since the 7660 doesn't have that option, it continues to use all your cartridges. So the only way to get B and W on the 7660 unit is to do what John does.

 

The 7960 is the printer HP recommends as having "true B and W printing capabilities." The specs for the 7660 doesn't make that claim. It just includes the grey cartridge as an option.

 

BTW, I did a little test and on a regular color print without obvious B and W, the difference in subtlety in shadows is significant when you use the grey cartridge as compared with the same print but with the black cartridge in in place of the grey.

 

Conni

[dano1]

I guess I could try removing the color cartrige, and seeing what it does. It just seems like a huge hassle. The biggest hassle is this:

 

Every time I swap a cartrige I must recalibrate. If I don't, I wind up with banding or hatching. It's usually not too noticable from about 1 foot, but If I look at them I see it.

 

Thus, if I were to have to remove the color cartrige in order to print black text, I would have to recalibrate the color cartrige. This is just too much hassle.

 

All I want is to print black text, using the black cartrige. I don't want to waste my color ink on just text. The only way I have been able to avoid this is using the draft mode. Anything that is not black or white will come out trash. Also, it doesn't allow for the high resolution text. My sister had to print over 200 pages on a document for her employer. It all had to be printed using color ink due to having draft mode as the only alternative.

 

Dan O.

[norman_v]

My 7660 tricolour ran out and I got a message suggesting I remove it to print using black only - obvious really - try it

Norman