The printer feeds paper but prints nothing
My printer runs but the pages come out blank. How do I fix it?
Written by The CommonFixes team · fact checked by CommonFixes review desk
Last updated
Short answer
Inkjet nozzles dry and clog when the printer sits unused, and cartridges often ship with a protective strip or need reseating after transport. The quickest thing to try first: remove the sealing tape — Take each cartridge out and check for an orange or clear plastic strip over the print head. New cartridges will print nothing until it is peeled off. Most people are done in about 10 minutes.
Full walkthrough below: 4 steps for Windows and Mac, rated easy.
Sounds like this
- •Pages come out clean
- •Faint or streaked text
- •Ink levels look fine
Why it happens
Inkjet nozzles dry and clog when the printer sits unused, and cartridges often ship with a protective strip or need reseating after transport.
Work through these in order
0% done- 1
Remove the sealing tape
Take each cartridge out and check for an orange or clear plastic strip over the print head. New cartridges will print nothing until it is peeled off.
- 2
Run the head cleaning cycle
From the printer's own menu choose Maintenance, then Clean print head or Nozzle check. Run it twice, then print the test page.
- 3
Reseat the cartridges
Push each cartridge in until it clicks. A cartridge that is only half seated reports ink but never releases any.
- 4
Print a test page from the printer itself
If the printer's own test page is fine, the fault is on the computer side. Reinstall the driver from the maker's site rather than the generic Windows one.
If none of that worked
For a laser printer, blank pages usually mean the toner cartridge sealing strip is still in place or the drum unit is finished. For an inkjet unused for many months, the head may be permanently blocked.
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Who wrote this and how we checked it
The CommonFixes team
Writer and researcher
We are a small group of people who spend our days repairing laptops and desktops for family, friends and small offices. Every guide here starts with a problem someone actually brought to us, and we only write down the steps that put the machine right.
- Everyday repairs
- Windows and Mac
- Plain language
CommonFixes review desk
Technical editor
Before a guide goes live, a second person walks through it on a real machine and checks each instruction against the maker's own support pages. Anything we cannot confirm is removed rather than guessed at.
- Fact checking
- Safety warnings
- Source links
This guide was last updated on 10 August 2026. If a step no longer matches what you see on screen, tell us on the contact page and we will test it again.
A gentle reminder: back up anything you cannot afford to lose before major repairs. If a step ever feels risky, stop and ask a technician. There is no shame in that.