I have a Canon MP600 printer and it has two black ink cartridges, one for color and one that is for black only. When I run out of the black color ink I can't print in black. How do I print using the black only cartridge?

If you need to simply print black/white documents, then when you print, go to print setup, and find an option for "grayscale" or "black/white"

With HP printers, don't know about Cannon, but if you remove the black cartridge, it will try to make black out of the color inks.

Good morning,

The Canon printers use a C (Cyan) M (Magenta) Y (Yellow) B (Black) system for color print. Instead of using the CYM colors to make a processed black, you actually get a black. The smaller Black cartridge is for the color system.

For Black Only, you would pull ink from the larger cartridge. You get to this setting by selecting "Black Only" from the driver.

However, you cannot print when the larger Black cartridge is empty. That's where the printer is looking for the ink since the smaller cartridge is tied to the color side (CMYK)

Answers from the funny sneezer and don are pretty right on. Just wanted to add to Don's comment about the smaller CLI8 blk cartridge. This cartridge is utilized with the other color cartridges and is only utilized when printing in photo mode. It is a photo black cartridge designed to be used when printing in photo mode and is not utilized when printing text and in normal modes. So, sorry, you would be hard pressed to force this cartridge to be utilized when your PGI5 cartridge is depleted, it just isn't made to work that way!