Why Is My Canon Printer Not Printing Properly? – Complete Guide

Canon printer not printing properly can be caused by various reasons and this guide of ours should help you fix this problem once and for all.

We know how frustrating it can be to try to print a document and see a printer error message on your Canon printer.

One day, everything is working as it’s supposed to be. The next day, you cannot even print a single black and white document.

So what could cause your Canon printer to not print properly at all?

Why Is My Canon Printer Not Printing?

Canon printers are supposed to be good home printers for those printing simple documents for their work or school. Canon printers may also print pictures and brochures. And since you paid for a brand new printer, it should work as such, correct?

Wrong.

Several dozen factors that can make your Canon printer stop printing. But we can all agree that it will not print because something is preventing it from working properly.

It does not matter what type or brand of printer you’re using, most printer owners would agree that you’re going to encounter at least one problem in your printer’s lifespan.

Before we go into details on how you can fix your Canon printer, let’s discuss first the common reasons that cause your printer to not print at all.

Common Reasons Why My Canon Printer Is Not Responding Or Working

Empty Ink Cartridges. Having only a small amount of ink inside your printer can already be considered an empty ink cartridge. And having empty ink cartridges can stop your Canon printer from printing documents properly.

Empty Paper Tray. Usually, most Canon printers will show you if it’s already out of paper. There would be a blinking light or an error message indicating you’re out of paper. Adding more paper to your printer should easily fix this issue.

Paper Jam. Jammed papers can cause a lot of problems to your printer’s mechanism. You won’t be able to print or copy any documents as long as there is a paper jam inside your printer. Even tiny or small debris can cause your printer to show a paper jam error.

Ink Cartridge Errors. Ink cartridges are vital in your printer’s operation, so a simple error on one of them can cause your Canon printer to stop working. Unfortunately, for ink cartridge errors the most common fix is to do an ink cartridge replacement.

Wireless Issue. Most Canon printers are wireless printers. And wireless printers often encounter connection problems either to your computer or your wireless network (WiFi). Not being connected to your WiFi router will cause your printer not to print any documents from your computer or even your mobile phone.

Corrupted Printer Driver. Your Canon printer driver serves as a bridge between your printer and your devices. It’s comparable to a wireless connection, except it is installed on your computer. The printer driver gives instructions to your printer on what documents to print and how to print them. A corrupted printer driver will prevent your Canon printer from printing documents properly.

Canon Printer Not Printing Fix

The good thing about having a Canon printer is there are a lot of online resources you can use to fix your printer. Whether your Canon printer is not printing black ink. Or a printer paper jam error occurred. Or even a printer offline issue.

You can fix your Canon printer without the need to contact their support team.

Also, our Printer Not Printing team has compiled almost every printer issue you might encounter and provided solutions for each one. You can use our printer issues resource page as a guide.

Now to start our Canon printer fix, let’s perform a basic printer checkup.

Basic Canon Printer Checkup

We advise all printer owners to do a basic printer checkup before performing any troubleshooting steps.

Here’s our step-by-step guide on how you can check your Canon Printer:

1. Turn on your Canon printer.
2. Check the display screen for any error messages, and make sure your buttons are all working properly.
3. Place a document on your scanner glass.
4. Select the copy button to make a copy of your document.

If you were able to copy a document successfully, then you can proceed to the basic troubleshooting steps below.

If not, then you have a much bigger problem here and you should go ahead and proceed to the advanced troubleshooting steps.

Advanced Troubleshooting Steps To Fix Your Canon Printer

Our advanced troubleshooting steps will now look into your printer software to make sure that your Canon printer issue is not because of a corrupted printer driver or a wireless connection issue.

Fixing Canon Printer Driver On Your Computer

If your Canon printer is not printing properly, it may be caused by a corrupt printer driver.

Printer drivers should be up-to-date for security reasons. Also, out-of-date Canon printer drivers often cause printer issues, so it’s best to enable automatic updates on your printer driver for less hassle on your end.

One way you’ll know if there’s a problem with your printer driver is if you can’t print any documents from your computer or laptop to your printer.

The option to choose between printing with just black ink or a colored document printout won’t show if your printer driver’s corrupted.

To fix your Canon printer driver, you have to remove your old printer driver first.

Go to your computer’s Control Panel, and uninstall your printer driver from there.

Once uninstalled, you must download and reinstall the printer driver from Canon’s website.

You can download your printer driver by going to this link that will lead you to your Canon printer’s driver download page.

Once downloaded, you just have to install it and try printing a document to check if it fixed the problem of your Canon printer not printing at all.

Fixing Canon Printer Wireless Issue

If you have a wireless Canon printer, and it’s not printing, you may have to check your wireless connection between your Canon printer and your WiFi router.

Go to your printer’s display screen, and look for the wireless icon. It looks like a radio antenna or a wireless signal.

Once you’ve found that, proceed to set up your wireless connection again. You just have to select your WiFi network name and enter your WiFi password. Once the connection is successful, you should be able to print again.

If not, check out our in-depth guide on how to fix any wireless printer connection issue.

If the above steps still do not work, you may have to do a semi-full reset to your Canon printer as our last attempt to make it work again.

A semi-full reset or reset to factory defaults is going to reset your printer back to its original settings. It’s like you have a brand new printer again, except it’s really not.

Hopefully, by resetting your Canon printer to its factory settings, it will start working again.

Since there are dozens of Canon printers, you may have to refer to your product manual for the instructions on how to do a semi-full reset or factory reset on your Canon printer.

If you don’t have your printer manual with you, you may download it directly from Canon’s User Manual Library page.

Canon Printer Maintenance Tips

Hopefully, those steps were able to fix your Canon printer not printing problem. Now that we’re able to get past that. Here are some basic maintenance tips in keeping your Canon printer in good working condition and preventing printer issues from reoccurring.

• Use only genuine ink cartridges.
• Make sure you are using compatible papers on your Canon printer.
• Get yourself a printer cover to prevent dust, debris, and other small particles from entering your machine.
• Use your printer at least once a week. Avoid not using it for an extended time to prevent your inks from drying.
• Replace empty ink cartridges right away to prevent damage to your printer’s printhead.
• Connect your printer directly to a wall outlet whenever you’re using it.

Frequently Asked Questions About Canon Printers