Maintain the printhead and ink cartridges
If you are experiencing problems with printing, you might have a problem with the printhead. You
should perform the procedures in the following sections only when directed to do so for resolving print
quality issues. For more information, see Print quality report.
Performing the aligning and cleaning procedures unnecessarily can waste ink and shorten the life of
the cartridges.
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Clean the printhead if your printed output is streaked or has any incorrect or missing colors.
There are three stages of cleaning. Each stage lasts about two minutes, uses one sheet of
paper, and uses an increasing amount of ink. After each stage, review the quality of the printed
page. You should only initiate the next phase of cleaning if the print quality is poor.
If print quality still seems poor after you complete all stages of cleaning, try aligning the printer. If
print quality problems persist after cleaning and aligning, contact HP support. For more
information, see HP support.
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Align the printer when the printer status page shows streaking or white lines through any of the
blocks of color, or if you are having print quality issues with your printouts.
The printer automatically aligns the printhead during the initial setup.
●
Clean ink smears when your printed output has smearing on the back. Ink may have built up in
some areas of the printer and needs to be removed.
NOTE: Cleaning uses ink, so clean the printhead only when necessary. The cleaning process takes
a few minutes. Some noise might be generated in the process.
Turning the printer off improperly can cause print quality problems. For more information, see Turn
the printer off.
To clean or align the printheads, or clean ink smears
1.
Load Letter or A4 unused plain white paper into the input tray. For more information, see Load
paper.
2.
From the printer control panel display, touch Setup.
3.
Touch Printer Maintenance, select the desired option, and then follow the on-screen instructions.
NOTE: You can also do the same from the HP printer software or embedded web server (EWS). To
access the software or EWS, see Open the HP printer software (Windows) or Open the embedded
web server.