Printers are the most reliably frustrating piece of technology in any home or office. Before you spend an hour on hold with the manufacturer or buy a new one, work through this systematically.
THE DIAGNOSTIC LADDER
Clear the print queue and restart the spooler
Search "services," find Print Spooler, right-click and restart. Then cancel all jobs in the print queue. This fixes a surprisingly large percentage of "won't print" problems immediately.
Check that the printer isn't set to offline
Right-click the printer in Windows Settings — make sure "Use Printer Offline" is unchecked. This gets toggled accidentally more than you'd expect.
Power cycle everything
Printer off, router off, computer off. Wait 60 seconds. Printer on first. Router. Computer. For network printers, the full cycle resolves a significant percentage of issues.
Remove and reinstall the printer driver
Remove the printer completely from Windows Settings. Download the driver fresh from the manufacturer's website — not Windows Update. Reinstall clean.
⚠️ Blank pages almost always mean empty or clogged cartridges. Most inkjet printers have a built-in head cleaning utility in the printer software — run it before buying new cartridges.
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