Understanding Potential Problems

Printers are mechanical devices with lots of moving parts. And any time you have moving parts, you have something that can break or wear out over time.

So when you click the old print button and nothing happens, what are the likely causes?

First, you might have the wrong printer driver installed in Windows. You might have either simply selected the wrong driver for your printer, or Windows might have mistaken your printer for another model, or the driver selected might be out of date. While we're in this area, it's also possible that various aspects of your printer setup might be incorrect, which can cause some highly unusual problems. You should also check your font setup because fonts themselves can cause perplexing problems if they're not installed correctly.

In addition, any new input or output device you've installed since you installed your main printer could have changed your printer's settings. (It's kind of like the last device installed gets dibs on key system settings.) If you've recently added a scanner or a digital camera or fax software or anything like that and then experienced printer problems, try uninstalling your printer (and all printer drivers) and then reinstalling your printer so that your printer is now the last device installed and thus controls key system settings.

It's also possible that if you're printing large or graphically complex documents, you might not have enough disk space or memory to print. Make sure that you have plenty of both, because Windows needs all the space it can get to complete the printing operation.

Finally, you could have real printer hardware problems. These problems range from the mundane (you're out of paper, you forgot to turn on the printer, a cable came loose) to the fairly serious (your printer is broken!). Check all your cables and connections and make sure that your printer is actually turned on.

The bottom line is there are a lot of things you need to check if you have printer problems, both hardware- and software-related. So if you have printing problems, hunker down and plow through the problems/solutions section, coming up next.

tip

One of the best ways to track down a printing-related problem is to use the Windows Print Troubleshooter, found in the Help utility.