Canon printer guide
Print this browser sheet to test the whole path from computer to paper, then compare it with Canon’s own Nozzle Check pattern or quality report. Together the two pages tell you whether the fault lives in the ink path, the printhead, the alignment or the computer, and they stop you burning ink on cleaning cycles that cannot help.
Generated locally in your browser. Nothing is uploaded.
8 pt — Fine text should remain crisp, evenly filled and easy to read without halos, feathering or broken strokes.
6 pt — If this line is legible and consistent, your printer is resolving small type well.Print it right
A scaled or economy-mode print can look like a printer fault. Start with a controlled print before changing ink, toner, or hardware.
Select the paper size in the tray, keep scale at 100%, and print the Complete sheet at Standard quality with Grayscale Printing off. This exercises the app, the Canon driver, the USB or Wi-Fi link and the printer together, so a defect here could still come from any of them.
From the printer: Setup (the wrench icon) → Maintenance → Nozzle Check or Print Nozzle Check Pattern. From a computer: Canon IJ Printer Assistant Tool on Windows, or Canon IJ Printer Utility on macOS, then Nozzle Check. In the Canon PRINT app, open the printer’s Maintenance section. Wording varies a little by model.
The same defect on both means the printer: ink, printhead, alignment or hardware. A clean Nozzle Check with a faulty browser sheet means the computer side: driver, app, color mode or connection. That single comparison decides whether cleaning is even worth trying.
Read the result
That ink channel is not delivering: an empty tank or cartridge, an orange shipping cap or tape left on, a FINE cartridge not clicked home, tank vents closed, or nozzles dried after weeks idle.
Check the level and seating, remove caps and tape, then run one Cleaning (not Deep Cleaning) for that color group and reprint the Nozzle Check.
The printer and ink path can reproduce every channel. The fault is on the computer side: Grayscale Printing on, a photo or vivid preset, the wrong media type, an old or generic driver, or the job going to a different Canon queue.
Reset the Canon driver preferences to default, confirm the exact model in the queue, update the driver from Canon, and print from another app.
Those nozzles are blocked or the channel is short of ink. Canon’s pattern prints each color as stepped lines; every gap is a group of nozzles that did not fire.
Run Cleaning once, let the cycle finish, and reprint the Nozzle Check. If two cycles do not close the gaps, run Deep Cleaning once.
Printhead alignment or bidirectional timing has drifted, often after a head or cartridge change, a paper jam, or moving the printer.
Run Print Head Alignment (Auto first, Manual if offered) from Maintenance, then reprint this sheet and compare the grid.
Media type or quality is mismatched: the driver is laying plain-paper ink onto photo paper, or Draft is on.
Set the media type to the paper loaded, choose Standard or High, and turn off Grayscale Printing and any Vivid Photo option for the test.
Air in the tubes between tank and head, or a tank that ran below its lower line. G-series printers need ink in the tubes as well as in the tanks.
Fill every tank above the lower limit line, then run one Cleaning. Use System Cleaning only if your model’s manual recommends it for this symptom; it consumes a large volume of ink.
Laser engine: toner distribution, the drum unit, the transfer roller or the fuser. Nothing here involves nozzles.
Measure the repeat spacing, print the printer’s reports from the Menu, and consult the model’s service guide before replacing anything.
Canon’s Nozzle Check pattern prints each color as a block and a set of stepped lines, plus a black block. A healthy pattern has unbroken blocks and lines with no gaps; a blocked group of nozzles shows as a missing segment or a white streak through the block. Because each printed segment maps to specific nozzles, the pattern is far more specific than a photograph, and it costs almost no ink.
Treat it as the gate for cleaning. Gaps justify one Cleaning cycle. A perfect pattern means cleaning cannot help and the problem is alignment, paper, driver settings or color management. Canon’s own sequence is: Cleaning, recheck, Cleaning again if needed, then Deep Cleaning; if Deep Cleaning fails twice, turn the printer off, wait 24 hours, and try Deep Cleaning once more. Every cycle draws ink from all channels in the group into the waste absorber, so the sequence is worth respecting.
Doubled vertical lines, a jagged grid or color fringes on text edges are alignment symptoms, not ink symptoms, and cleaning will not touch them. Canon’s Print Head Alignment prints a sheet of patterns and, on Auto models, scans it back to correct the timing of the return carriage pass. Manual alignment asks you to pick the cleanest pattern in each group from the printed sheet.
Realignment is worth running after any printhead or FINE cartridge change, after a jam, and after transporting the printer. Print this sheet again afterwards and compare the grid and the 6 pt line with the earlier print.
Canon laser models have no printhead and no nozzles. Toner is drawn onto a charged drum, transferred to the paper and fused by heat, so faults follow rotating parts, toner level and paper condition. Pale pages point to toner or an economy setting; gray background or specks point to a worn drum or a contaminated cartridge; smears that wipe off point to fusing; and a mark that repeats at a regular spacing follows a roller once per revolution.
Print the machine’s own reports from the Menu (look for Output Report, Reports or Print Lists), check consumable status, and measure any repeating mark before buying a cartridge. On models with a separate drum unit, a drum fault is fixed by the drum, not by new toner.
Some Canon faults arrive as a support code on the display rather than as a bad print. Support code 5B00 (preceded on many models by a 1700-series warning) means the ink absorber is full; the printer stops until it is serviced or the absorber is replaced, and no cleaning helps. Codes in the 1400 range relate to a FINE cartridge that is missing or not recognized, and codes in the 1600 range to a tank that is empty or not installed, which explains a missing color on both test sheets. Write the code down and search it with the exact model name before assuming the printer is faulty.
FAQ
Two ways. Print the browser sheet above at 100% for a full-path test. Or from the printer, choose Setup → Maintenance → Nozzle Check (or Print Nozzle Check Pattern); on Windows use Canon IJ Printer Assistant Tool, on macOS Canon IJ Printer Utility, and in the Canon PRINT app the printer’s Maintenance section. On imageCLASS lasers, look under Menu → Output Report or Reports.
It shows whether every nozzle group in the printhead is firing. Each color prints as a block and stepped lines; a gap or a white streak means blocked nozzles or an empty channel. A clean pattern rules out clogging, so if documents still print badly the cause is alignment, paper, driver settings or the application.
Run Cleaning once, reprint the Nozzle Check, and clean a second time only if gaps remain. If two cycles do not fix it, run Deep Cleaning once; if that fails twice, turn the printer off for 24 hours and try Deep Cleaning once more. Each cycle uses ink from every channel in the group and fills the waste absorber, so repeated cleaning is not free.
The printer and ink path work, so look at the computer side. Reset the Canon driver to default, turn off Grayscale Printing and any photo or vivid preset, set the media type to the paper loaded, check the queue is pointing at the right model, and print from a different application. An outdated or generic Windows driver is a common cause.
Yes. Use the black, color, grid and type patterns on imageCLASS and i-SENSYS models. Interpret them with laser rules: no nozzles and no cleaning cycles. Pale output means toner or economy mode, repeating marks mean a drum or roller, smears mean fusing or paper. Use the printer’s own reports and the model’s service guide.
The ink absorber, a pad that collects the ink used by cleaning cycles, is full. The printer refuses to print until it is reset and the absorber is replaced or cleaned by a service center. It is not a print quality fault, and it is one reason not to run cleaning cycles more often than the manual suggests.
Ink has to travel through tubes from the tanks to the printhead. If a tank ran below its lower line, air can enter the tube. Fill every tank above the lower limit, make sure the caps and vents are seated as the manual shows, then run one Cleaning. Use System Cleaning only if your model’s manual recommends it for this symptom, because it consumes a large volume of ink.