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Printer ink — print one page a week so nozzles stay wet

Printer ink

Printer ink tip for inkjets that sit idle: print one small color page a week so the nozzles stay wet and you waste less ink on cleaning cycles.

Printer ink: print one page a week so nozzles stay wet (related household photo)
Photo: Snewkirk7953 / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 3.0)

Inkjet printer ink can dry in the nozzles when the printer sits for weeks. A cleaning cycle fixes it, but it burns through more ink than a tiny page would have.

A weekly page keeps printer ink flowing

  1. Pick one day a week and print a single page that uses every color, like a small photo or a color nozzle check.
  2. Leave the printer plugged in and turned off with its own button between uses so it can cap the printhead.
  3. If you will be away for a month, print the page before you go and again when you return.
  4. Only run a head clean if the weekly page shows gaps or streaks.

Small habit, big savings: one page a week costs a few drops of printer ink and can skip a whole cleaning cycle.

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