Canon printing quality issue

roytom

I've used loads of different ink jet printers but this has me stumped.

Cannon MG3250 - I have others within this range that use the 540/541 chipped carts with the colour cart a multi colour combo.

Printing of plain black text (most of what I do) is rubbish - grey-ish and a bit fuzzy, but copying is better.

Except if you select "Business Document" from the printer options. This prints perfect black text, very fast, which shows signs of fast printing artifacts - ie. slightly misalignment of some text. But also on "Business Document" setting it won't do double sided printing which I need.

Clearly these printers can print very well but I suspect that the default setting is using coloured inks to do black text. Is this a plot to get the colour carts replaced as often as possible? It would be an interesting test if I refilled a colour cart with black ink!

kwikbreaks

Sounds like time to get a different printer to me.

interstellaflyer

roytom wrote: »

I've used loads of different ink jet printers but this has me stumped.

Cannon MG3250 - I have others within this range that use the 540/541 chipped carts with the colour cart a multi colour combo.

Printing of plain black text (most of what I do) is rubbish - grey-ish and a bit fuzzy, but copying is better.

Except if you select "Business Document" from the printer options. This prints perfect black text, very fast, which shows signs of fast printing artifacts - ie. slightly misalignment of some text. But also on "Business Document" setting it won't do double sided printing which I need.

Clearly these printers can print very well but I suspect that the default setting is using coloured inks to do black text. Is this a plot to get the colour carts replaced as often as possible? It would be an interesting test if I refilled a colour cart with black ink!

Sounds like an issue with the black cartridge to me, either the printhead is faulty or slightly clogged, try running the printhead clean, those cartridges are normally pretty reliable and the black gives good quality prints. Not sure why it won't do duplex as the machine is capable, are you ticking the double side box?

JJ_Egan

How often do you clean the print heads ??

interstellaflyer

JJ_Egan wrote: »

How often do you clean the print heads ??

In normal use, you shouldn't have to unless the printer is left switched off for long periods however, it's always worth starting with a head clean if the print quality is poor.

Robisere

interstellaflyer wrote: »

In normal use, you shouldn't have to unless the printer is left switched off for long periods however, it's always worth starting with a head clean if the print quality is poor.

And Alignment.

roytom

I've done all the things suggested, except for buying a new printer, and nothing makes any difference and the printer can print perfectly when used in business document mode.

I have several of these printers that use the same type of cartridge and the problem exists on most of them. All are used regularly. The print heads, ie. in cart, are clean....

interstellaflyer

roytom wrote: »

Clearly these printers can print very well but I suspect that the default setting is using coloured inks to do black text. Is this a plot to get the colour carts replaced as often as possible? It would be an interesting test if I refilled a colour cart with black ink!

No, the default setting is not to use the colour to print black, if you are printing a text document done in Word or similar then anything in black such as text will be printed using the black cartridge. I sell a lot of 540/541 cartridges, both original and ones I've refilled, on the whole they print very well and I certainly haven't come across what you are describing, are you using original Canon cartridges, remanufactured cartridges or refilling yourself?