Printer Troubleshooting Guides

4 guides

A printer that worked yesterday and doesn’t today usually has one of a handful of problems: it lost its network connection, a job is stuck in the queue, paper is caught somewhere, or the ink or toner needs attention.

These guides help you work out which one, in the order a careful technician would check. They also flag the jobs that are not safe to do yourself, such as reaching into a hot laser printer.

Setting up a printer or moving it to Wi-Fi? See the printer setup guides.

All Printer Troubleshooting guides

  • How to Fix a Printer That Says It's Offline

    Printer offline in Windows 11 or macOS? Check power and Wi-Fi, clear the queue, restart print services and re-add the printer, step by step.

    6 min read

  • What to Do When Your Printer Won't Print

    Printer not printing? Check paper, ink and errors, clear stuck jobs, pick the right default printer and reinstall the driver on Windows or Mac.

    6 min read

  • How to Clear a Paper Jam Safely

    Fix a printer paper jam safely: power off, unplug, let laser printers cool, remove the sheet gently, find torn scraps and stop jams coming back.

    6 min read

  • How to Fix Faded, Streaky or Blank Prints

    Fix print quality problems like faded, streaky or blank pages: check ink or toner, print settings and paper, then clean and align the print head.

    6 min read