After replacing ink cartridges, now my printer won’t print any document from Microsoft Word program. It prints from everything else, but not Word. What do I need to do?
I think that something happened to the printer drivers, although I’m surprised that it happened when you replaced the ink cartridges. Because Word is so printer-intensive, a minor problem with the printer driver will affect Word more quickly than it will other programs. You can try to use the generic, default printer driver to see if that works.
Install Printer Driver
The first thing to do is try to install a new printer driver from the manufacturer’s website. Most printer manufacturers will make it easy to find and download the new drivers for your model on their websites. Often, once you have downloaded the driver, there will be an option to delete the old driver - choose yes. If you want, you can also go to Printers and Faxes, find the driver and manually delete it before you download a new one.
Install the Generic Driver
You can also test the driver by reinstalling the generic printer driver. Go to Start and then Printers and Faxes. Click on Add a Printer under Printer Tasks. You will see the Add a Printer wizard. Click Next. Click on “Local printer attached to this computer” and make sure “Automatically detect and install my plug and play printer” is not checked. Click Next. Chose File for the port and click Next. Under Manufacturers, click Generic and next. You will be asked whether the printer is the default. Choose Yes and then Next. Do not opt to print a test page. Click on Finish. After the drivers have installed, go to a Word document and try to print it.
Detect and Repair
If reinstalling the printer drivers doesn’t work, you can use Microsoft’s Detect and Repair feature to reinstall missing or damaged program files. Get into Word and go to Help. Click on Detect and Repair and choose Start. You may be prompted to install the Word CD ROM. Do so and click OK. If you have Word 2007, Detect and Repair has been replaced with Microsoft Office Diagnostics. Go to the Office button, click Word Options > Resources > Microsoft Office Diagnostics and follow the prompts.
If you find that you are still having problems, there are other, more involved methods to find the problem such as clean boot troubleshooting. I really think new drivers will solve your problem, but if you need more help, please let us know.
