Printer not printing — what to check before calling IT
Before you assume the printer is broken, check a few basics — in most cases the cause is trivial and visible at a glance.
What to check, step by step
Check the display and lights on the printer
Most printers signal a problem with a blinking light or a message on a small screen — out of paper, an open cover, a paper jam, or empty ink/toner. This is the most common cause, and it's visible right away.
Check you're printing to the right device
In the print dialog, check the correct printer is selected — it's easy to miss that the system defaulted to a different one, like a PDF "printer" or a printer in another room.
Check the connection
For a USB-connected printer, check the cable is plugged in at both ends. For a network printer, check it's connected to WiFi (usually shown on its own screen).
Restart the printer
Turn the printer off with its power button, wait about 30 seconds, and turn it back on. This fixes a surprisingly large share of problems, especially on network printers.
Try printing something simple
Print a short test page instead of the large document where you first noticed the problem — this tells you whether the issue is with the printer itself or with that specific file.
When it's a job for IT
- The printer shows "offline" even though it's powered on — that's a separate problem, see the next article in this section.
- A document is stuck in the print queue and won't cancel — see the article on clearing the print queue.
- Restarting doesn't help, and the printer's lights don't point to any specific error.
- Several people using the same network printer are affected at once.
Couldn't fix it yourself?
Report the issue — it goes straight into our ticketing system, and our AI assistant assesses priority right away.