Your printer prints blank or faded pages

Almost always one of three things: a cartridge that's empty, a cartridge that isn't seated properly, or your Mac using the wrong printer software. Check them in that order — the first two cost a minute.

1. Check what's actually left

Printers usually know their own levels and rarely volunteer them. A colour reading five per cent will print pale or not at all, and a colour page needs colour cartridges even when it looks mostly black.

On a Mac: System Settings → Printers & Scanners → your printer → Options & Supplies → Supply Levels. Not every printer reports there.

2. Reseat every cartridge

Open the front, take each cartridge out, push it firmly back in until it clicks. One that isn't quite home stops everything without saying so, and it's the single most common cause of a printer that "just stopped working" after someone changed the ink.

While it's open, check you removed the protective tape from any new cartridge.

3. Check your Mac has the right software for it

If macOS couldn't match your printer to its proper driver it falls back to a general-purpose stand-in. Pages then come out faint, wrongly scaled, or blank, and nothing on screen says why.

System Settings → Printers & Scanners → your printer. If it says Generic PostScript Printer rather than your model, that's your problem. Remove it and add it back — macOS usually finds the right one on a second attempt. And check you don't have the same printer listed twice, one good and one generic.

4. Run the printer's own cleaning cycle

Inkjets that have sat unused for weeks dry out. There's a head-cleaning routine in the printer's own menu, or under Options & Supplies → Utility on your Mac. Two cycles is worth trying; more than that just wastes ink.

If it's laser, not inkjet

Faded laser output usually means toner low, or the drum near the end of its life. Take the toner cartridge out and rock it gently side to side — that redistributes what's left and often buys a few dozen more pages.