That's not quite what I meant, but I agree. I meant that they say mixing the colors into the black makes it look better. In this case, it's just that the black isn't there to be mixed into. What's left is merely gray-ish.


But I'm still curious as to why it would print text in color but not black. My current assumption is that the printer is simply broken, but in addition to connecting my printer up to her computer, I'll also be connecting my computer to her printer, so that should tell me a lot.


There's nothing that makes me cringe more when I receive a support call than something to do with printers. They're the lowest of the low. All my clients are amazed at how inexpensive they are, then complain about the ink cost. I can't stand how poor the quality has gotten on these things, and the software is even worse.

Even though it's the last thing they'd want to do, what I'd honestly like is for Apple to make a printer. Have they ever made one? The printer market really needs a product with Apple-level construction. I yearn for a model I can really recommend to my customers that doesn't come with the caveat of "well, it's cheap enough that it if breaks it won't be expensive to replace."

Currently, if one of my clients doesn't mind only printing in black and white, I highly recommend the Brother HL2270DW. It's $112, laserjet, wireless, AND has duplexing (which I've never seen in any laserjet in this price level). I set one up for my mother, and the Windows software was decently light, and it works great on the Mac as well (had to download the drivers, but it worked great after that). Best of all the replacement toner is inexpensive.