Article
Printer troubleshooting
Printer problems usually have one of three causes: the printer is offline or low on something, the wrong printer is selected, or the print queue is jammed. Here is the order to check.
Step One
Look at the printer itself
Check the display panel for errors
Toner low, paper out, paper jam, lid open, waste tray full. Most office printers will not print until the message is cleared. Walk over to the printer before doing anything else.
Check the network status if it is a shared printer
If the printer's display says offline or shows no network connection, the printer is the problem, not your computer. Restart the printer (power off, wait 30 seconds, power on).
Try printing from another computer or phone
If no one in the office can print, it is the printer. If you are the only one who can't, it is your computer or your printer install.
Step Two
Check what your computer is doing
Make sure the right printer is selected
The print dialog often defaults to "Microsoft Print to PDF" or the last printer you used. Look at the printer dropdown and pick the one you want.
Clear the print queue if jobs are stuck
On Windows, open Settings > Bluetooth & devices > Printers & scanners, click your printer, then Open print queue. Right-click any stuck job and Cancel. If the queue is huge, restart your computer to clear it.
Check that the printer shows as Ready, not Offline
If Windows shows the printer as Offline, right-click the printer and choose "Use Printer Online" or remove and re-add the printer.
Step Three
Common patterns and fixes
Wrong tray, wrong paper size, or duplex when you wanted simplex
These come from the print dialog's Properties or Preferences button, not the printer. Open Properties before clicking Print and check tray, paper size, and one-sided vs two-sided.
Prints come out tiny or huge
Check Scale or "Fit to page" in the print dialog. PDFs especially default to "Fit" which can shrink large drawings.
PDF prints are blank or missing graphics
Try "Print as image" in the PDF print dialog (Adobe Acrobat: Advanced > Print as Image; Bluebeam: Advanced > Print as Image). This bypasses font and rendering issues.
Color prints come out black and white
Check the print dialog's color setting (Properties > Color). The driver may default to grayscale.
Large drawings print with a thin missing border
Check the print dialog's "Fit to page" or scale setting. Many printers have a non-printable margin at the edges.
If You Need IT
What to send
The printer name as it appears in Windows
Open Settings > Bluetooth & devices > Printers & scanners and copy the exact printer name.
Whether the issue is one printer or all printers
If only one printer fails and others work, the problem is that printer. If every printer fails, the problem is your computer's print spooler.
The exact error or behavior
"Nothing prints" is hard to diagnose. "The job goes to the queue then disappears with error 0x00000709" is something IT can act on.