If you have tried to print a document in Windows 10, you know that it won’t print unless the printer is online. Usually, this just involves turning on your printer and waiting a few seconds for the status to change from offline to online.
If you're running Windows 10, see Fix printer problems in Windows 10. When you connect a printer to your PC or add a new printer to your home network, you can usually start printing right away. Windows supports most printers, and you probably won't have to go out of your way to install special printer software. There is one set of users who are facing Printer problems after upgrading from Windows 8.1 or Windows 7 to Windows 10. Some are reporting that the Printer is not being detected or recognized, the. HP ePrint software - HP ePrint software provides the ability to wirelessly print from a Windows or Mac desktop or laptop, to any wireless direct printer that is ePrint-enabled and connected to a network or HP cloud, from within applications using the standard File Print method. Includes a driver for Windows and a.pdf workflow for Mac.
Unfortunately, this doesn’t happen all the time. Instead, the printer will remain in offline status even though your printer is on and connected to your computer or to the network. There are quite a few reasons why Windows may not detect that the printer is online and I’ll do my best to cover as many solutions as possible.
The following applies to HP systems with Intel 6th Gen and other future-generation processors on systems shipping with Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1 or Windows 10 Pro systems downgraded to Windows 7 Professional, Windows 8 Pro, or Windows 8.1: This version of Windows running with the processor or chipsets used in this system has limited.
Step 1: Power Cycle Devices
The first thing to do before you get deep into settings and tools is to simply try power cycling your printer and computer. A lot of times that fixes the problem. Turn off your printer and turn off your computer. Then power on your printer and wait until it is connected to the network. If you’re using a USB cable, just wait till the printer is finished starting up.
Now turn on your computer and see if the printer is still showing up offline or not. Make sure the printer is fully turned off and not just in power saving mode. If you’re not sure, the best thing to do is to unplug the printer completely for about 30 seconds.
Step 2: Use Printer Software
If your printer is still showing offline, then you can try to use the printer software that came with your printer. These printer utilities can usually detect the printer on the network and fix any issues that are causing the printer to appear offline.
For example, you can check out my previous post on using HP Print and Scan Doctor to help with issues for HP printers. For Canon, go to their support site, enter your model number and then click on the Software tab. You can download their My Printer software to manage and maintain your printer.
This pretty much applies to all printer manufacturers. If you have a Dell printer, go to the Dell drivers and downloads page, search for your printer and then download the printer application.
Above is an example of Kyocera Print Center software running on my Windows 10 machine. It will show you the status of the printer and give you additional details like ink levels, etc. If you’re not sure whether or not printer software is installed on your machine, you can check by going to Settings, then clicking on Devices and finally clicking on Printers & Scanners.
Windows 10 will list out the printers on the right-hand side and if there is a software package installed to manage the printer, it will say App available for this device. If you click on the printer, then click on Manage, you’ll see an Open printer app button.
In my case, I didn’t even know I had the software already installed on my system, so this was helpful.
Step 3: Set Printer Online
Sometimes, even though the printer is online and connected, the settings are incorrectly configured. Open the printer queue by going to Devices and Printers in Control Panel and double-clicking on the printer.
Here you want to click on Printer in the menu bar and then make sure to uncheck Pause Printing and Use Printer Offline.
Step 4: Run the Troubleshooter
If the problem is with the Windows printing subsystem, then running the troubleshooter might help. You can run the troubleshooter by following the steps in Step 2 to get to the Manage your device screen for the printer. Once there, you’ll see the Run the troubleshooter link. Click on that and it will check the spooler service, the network settings, etc.
The troubleshooter usually works if the problem is related to Windows.
Step 5: Check Printer Port
If nothing has worked till now, the problem is probably related to the port configuration. This will most likely only apply to a networked printer, which has an IP address. The most likely cause is that the IP address of the printer has changed, but the port configuration still points to the old IP address.
First, find out the IP address for your printer by printing out a network configuration page. If you can’t figure out how to do that, then check out my previous post on how to use some simple and free tools to scan your network and view the IP address of all devices on your network.
Once you have the IP address, go to Control Panel, Devices and Printers and right-click on the printer. Make sure to select Printer Properties, not Properties at the bottom.
Click on the Ports tab and then scroll down the list until you see the one port that is checked. Select it and then click on Configure Port.
This dialog will tell you the current IP address that it thinks the printer has. If the IP address of the printer is different than the one listed here, then that’s your problem. Simply update the IP address here and you should be good to go.
If you get any kind of error, like the one shown below, when trying to configure the port, then it’s probably because it’s configured as a WSD port.
A WSD port, which stands for Web Services for Devices, is an automatically configured port that you cannot edit. If this is the case and you can’t connect to your printer, you have to add a new TCP/IP port (via Add Port button). You can read my previous post on adding a network printer by creating a TCP/IP port. You can also read my article on how to troubleshoot wireless printers, which gives some extra tips.
The other less technical option is to follow Step 6, which is to delete the printer and then re-add it, thereby automatically using the new IP address.
Step 6: Remove and Re-Add Printer
If you can’t get the printer working yet, then your best option might be to remove it and then re-install it. When Windows installs a printer, it will detect it, check all the settings, and make sure the driver for the printer is installed properly.
You can remove the printer by going to Control Panel, Devices and Printers, right-clicking on the printer and choosing Remove Device.
It’s also a good idea to restart the computer once before you reinstall the printer. Note that this will not remove the driver for the printer from your system. If there is some issue with the driver, follow Step 7.
Once you have restarted, click Add Printer and Windows should automatically detect the printer connected locally on connected to your network.
Step 7 – Reinstall Printer Driver
Sometimes the issue can be associated with the current print driver. If this is the case, you should download the latest driver for your printer from the manufacturer’s website. However, before you do that, it’s a good idea to remove the current print driver.
Read my guide on how to remove a printer driver from Windows. Note that the article still applies to Windows 10.
Hopefully, you’ve been able to print by now. If not, I recommend reading my other general guide to troubleshooting printers. In addition to everything above, it’s always a good idea to install the latest Windows updates as those usually contain newer print drivers, which could make your printer work better with Windows 10. If you have any questions, post a comment. Enjoy!
The paperless office isn’t yet here for many of us, and printers are still a fact of life. If your printer isn’t working quite right on a Windows PC, here are some simple troubleshooting tips that can fix it.
Obviously, the first steps are the most obvious. Verify your printer is plugged in, powered on, and connected to your computer (or the Wi-Fi network, if it’s a Wi-Fi printer). These may seem obvious, but sometimes we forget to check the simple things before checking the more complex ones.
Check the Paper
First, ensure your printer is in proper working state. Verify that the printer has paper loaded if it isn’t printing. Even if you’ve loaded paper, you may need to properly align the paper so the printer can use it. Check the inside of the printer to ensure there isn’t a paper jam preventing the printer from working. If there is, you may need to manually remove the jammed paper and clear things up.
Check the Ink or Toner
Hp Printer Troubleshooting Windows 7 Install
Of course, you’ll need enough ink (if it’s an inkjet printer) or toner (if it’s a laser printer) before you can print. Even if you’re just printing in black-and-white, some inkjet printers may refuse to print at all until you refill their color ink.
To check your printer’s ink levels on Windows, open the Devices and Printers window in Windows. You can do so by opening the Control Panel and clicking “View devices and printers” under Hardware and Sound. You may be able to select a printer by clicking it and view this information at the bottom of the window, or right-click a printer, select “Properties”, and look for the ink or toner levels.
Many printers report that sort of information here, although not all do — it depends on the printer and its drivers. You may also be able to see this information on the printer itself, if it has a built-in status display.
Check the Print Queue Dialog
Problems with printing could also be caused by issues with Windows. To ensure nothing is going wrong, open the print queue dialog in Windows. You can open a printer’s queue by right-clicking that printer in the Devices & Printers window and selecting “See what’s printing”. If you see an older document that can’t print with an error, right-click the document here and remove it. If a printer job is paused, you can resume it from here.
You should also click the “Printer” menu here and verify that “Use printer offline” isn’t enabled. If this option is checked, remove the checkmark to disable it.
Install, Update, or Reinstall Your Printer Drivers
You may need to install, update, or reinstall the printer drivers if it isn’t working properly. Printers should ideally “just work” and have their drivers automatically installed by Windows, but this doesn’t always work. To do this, visit your printer manufacturer’s website, download their driver package, and run the driver installer. It’ll walk you through installing the printer drivers and detecting your printer.
Use the Printer’s Diagnostics
You might need to use a diagnostic function that will clean the printer’s heads or nozzles, or realign them. This option will be in a slightly different place in each printer, depending on the printer’s software. On Windows, open the Devices and Printers window, right-click a printer, select “Properties”, and examine the options here to see what options are available for your particular printer. These options are provided by your printer drivers, and you may find them somewhere else — for example, in a printer configuration utility located in your Start menu.
This can help fix problems with poor print quality, too.
Set Your Default Printer
RELATED:What’s New in Windows 10’s First Big November Update
Windows 10’s “November update” changed the way default printers work on Windows. By default, every time you print to a printer, Windows will automatically make it your default printer. This would be inconvenient if you wanted to leave one particular printer as your default one and occasionally print to another one.
To disable this, open the Settings app from the Start menu or Start screen, select “Devices”, select “Printers & scanners”, and disable the “Let Windows manage my default printer” option.
You can then select a default printer by clicking or tapping it in this window and clicking “Set as default”. You can also right-click a printer in the Devices and Printers window and select “Set as Default Printer”.
If your printer has a physical control panel with buttons on it, you may need to press the “OK” button one or more times if it’s displaying a status message. Some printers may just not print until you press “OK” and verify you’ve seen a displayed status message. This control panel may also display more detailed error message that will point you in the right direction and give you something to search for if it isn’t working properly.
Lots of things can go wrong with a printer, and some printers — especially older ones — may display confusing error messages. If your printer shows a particular error message and you’re not sure what it means, you should try searching the web for that particular error message.
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