Maintaining Your Printer

This section describes maintenance procedures to keep your printer working at its best and preparation steps for moving your printer. Follow the instructions here for:

■cleaning the print head (below)

■replacing an ink cartridge (on page 23)

■aligning the print head (on page 28)

■cleaning the printer (on page 29)

■transporting the printer (on page 30)

For more details, watch your Fix-it Flix movies, as described on page 4, and read your electronic Reference Guide, as described on page 2.

Cleaning the Print Head

If your printed image is unexpectedly light or faint, or dots are missing from the image, you may need to clean the print head. This unclogs the nozzles so they can deliver ink properly.

Cleaning the print head uses ink, so clean it only if print quality declines. You can clean the print head using the Head Cleaning utility (when the printer is connected to a local port, not over a network), as described below. You can also clean the print head using the printer’s control panel buttons, as shown in your Fix-it Flix movies and described in your Reference Guide.

When you don’t turn on your printer for a long time, the print quality can decline. It’s a good idea to turn on your printer at least once a month to maintain good print quality.

If any paper you buy comes with a cleaning sheet, don’t use the cleaning sheet with your printer; it may jam inside the printer.

Follow these steps to run the Head Cleaning utility:

1.Make sure the printer is turned on but not printing, and both the B black and A color ink out lights are off. (If an ink out light is flashing, replace the ink cartridge instead.)

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