99% of printer problems can be solved with this one trick
Did you know that most printer problems can be solved by turning your printer off (and then back on) at the button and restarting your computer? It’s true!
Most of the time your printer problem is caused by either the printer or your computer (or both) not being on the same WiFi network in your home or office. Restarting both of them usually puts them both on the right network, solving the communication problem. Most of the time this solves your problem without any other help. However, sometimes you have to do one or two other things to fix it if it still doesn’t start printing.
If you restarted both and it still isn’t printing, you may have a “bad” print job in the “queue”, which is where print jobs are stored until they get printed. Removing the bad or corrupted print job from the queue will often fix the problem if restarting did not work. Here’s how you clear the print job in Microsoft and Apple:
Microsoft— If a document is “stuck” in the print queue, then it will show as a tiny printer in the bottom right corner of the screen, where all the tiny little icons are. If you don’t see it immediately, you may need to click the up-pointing arrow, then you will see a tiny printer icon.
Double left click it and a box will appear (this is the print queue). If you see a document in the list, then this is probably what is causing the issue. Right click on the document in the list and choose Cancel with one left click (then click the Yes button in the next box that appears). Do this for any remaining documents you see in the list and restart the computer and printer.
Apple— In the dock, at the bottom of the screen— usually to the right side, you will see a Printer icon with a red number in a circle if the document is stuck in the queue. This is the queue for Apple— left click it to get a similar Print Queue Box and click the X in a circle to the right of the document in the list. Do this for all remaining documents and restart the computer and the printer.
These tips will solve most printer problems, but just restarting both the printer and the computer (in no particular order) will do the trick most of the time by itself.
