Cleaning The Printer Head. A customer of mine phoned me recently explaining that her printer, a Canon i560, was printing the wrong colours. As luck would have it, I had to pass her office that afternoon so I called in to investigate.

The cure was easy enough but as far as she was aware had never been carried out.

I simply performed a head cleaning cycle! The result, Perfect image and text printing.

If the colours are wrong or the print becomes faint or washed out it is almost always the result of a dirty printer head. Head Cleaning is a crucial operation that should be carried out at least once a month under normal usage especially on Epson and Canon printers.

How To Clean The Printer Head On An Inkjet Printer.

1) Click on Start and go to Settings. Click on Printers and Faxes and then double click on the printer or fax machine you wish to work on.

2) Click on Printer or Fax at the top left and then on to Properties from the drop down menu.

3) Click on Printing Preferences. In the new window that opens click on Maintenance. Click on the operation you wish to perform in this case Head Cleaning and follow the on-screen instructions.

Some Points To Remember. Performing the head cleaning operation uses some ink. Some newer printers have a deep cleaning cycle in addition to the normal clean. This should only be used when absolutely necessary as a lot of ink is used.

Head cleaning can only be carried out if your cartridges have enough ink remaining. If you receive the message ‘Ink is low, cannot carry out cleaning’, you should replace the cartridge and then carry out a head cleaning cycle.