This color printer test page prints every ink your printer uses on one sheet, first on its own and then mixed: cyan, magenta, yellow and black bars, red, green and blue, a 50% gray, four ramps from white to full color, a rainbow and a color wheel. It works as a printer color test page for inkjet, color laser and photo printers from any maker, on US Letter or A4, and as a quick color print test after you change a cartridge. Read the bars with the table below and a missing, weak or tinted ink shows up straight away. It is not a JPG image that blurs when it prints: the page is drawn as sharp shapes, so it prints crisp at any size and its rulers measure true. To test one cartridge at a time, choose Single color page and pick the ink. For one sheet that also covers black and white, alignment and a nozzle check, use the main printer test page.
How to print the color printer test page
- Choose Full color page above. Use Photo test image for a photo printer, or Single color page to check one ink.
- Pick the paper size and load plain paper. For the photo page, load photo paper and set the paper type to match.
- Press Print this page and select your printer. Keep Color set to Color and the scale at 100%.
- In the printer's own settings, choose Standard quality and turn off any grayscale or black ink only option.
- Read the printed sheet with the table below.
How to read the color bars
Printers mix every color from tiny dots of cyan, magenta, yellow and black. The first four bars show each ink alone. The next three are mixes of two inks, which makes them the quickest way to spot an ink that is weak but not missing.
| Patch | Inks it uses | What a fault looks like |
|---|---|---|
| Cyan | Cyan | White lines, pale, or blank |
| Magenta | Magenta | White lines, pale, or blank |
| Yellow | Yellow | Faults are hard to see, so check red and green |
| Black | Black, or all three colors on some inkjets | Gray, brown or streaked |
| Red | Magenta and yellow | Orange means weak magenta, pink means weak yellow |
| Green | Cyan and yellow | Blue green means weak yellow, yellow green means weak cyan |
| Blue | Cyan and magenta | Purple means weak cyan, teal means weak magenta |
| 50% gray | All three colors, or black | A pink, green or blue tint |
The ramps should fade from white to full color with no steps or bands. The color wheel should blend smoothly through every hue to white in the middle. Patches of solid color with black text on them check that ink stays where it is put: fuzzy letters there mean the paper setting or the paper is wrong.
One color is missing or streaked
- Check the ink or toner levels in the printer's menu or app.
- Take the cartridge out and put it back until it clicks. On a new cartridge, make sure the protective tape is fully off.
- Run one head cleaning on an inkjet, then print a nozzle check page to see which nozzles are still blocked.
- Print a Single color page in that ink. A solid block of one color shows gaps more clearly than a mixed page.
- If the color stays missing after two or three cleanings, the guide for a printer not printing in color covers dried print heads, empty tanks and driver settings.
Yellow is the hardest ink to judge on white paper. Look at the red and green bars instead, where missing yellow turns red pink and green blue.
Colors come out wrong or tinted
When the gray patch has a tint, one ink is weak or blocked. Pink gray means cyan is low, green gray means magenta is low and blue gray means yellow is low. Run a cleaning and check that color first.
When every color is off in the same way, look at the settings before the ink:
- Paper type: a plain paper setting on photo paper, or the reverse, shifts colors because the driver lays down a different amount of ink.
- Color adjustment: some drivers keep custom color, brightness or saturation settings from an earlier job. Reset them to the defaults in the printer's preferences.
- Other brands of ink: a refill or compatible cartridge can have a slightly different shade from the original ink, which tints mixes and grays.
- Dye ink fading: prints made with dye ink fade in sunlight faster than pigment ink, so an old print is not a fair comparison.
Colors look faded or washed out
Plain paper soaks up ink, so colors always look duller than on photo paper. That is normal and not a fault. If prints are pale even on the right paper, the printer may be set to Draft, Fast or an economy mode, or the cartridges are running low. On a color laser, a toner save mode prints every color pale on purpose.
Printed colors do not match your screen
A screen glows with red, green and blue light, while paper only reflects the light in the room. The most saturated screen blues, greens and oranges cannot be printed with ink, so the printer picks the closest color it can make. Most screens are also much brighter than paper. Turning the screen brightness down brings the two closer, and a monitor color test shows whether your screen itself is off. For close matching, designers calibrate the screen with a measuring device and print with the color profile made for their paper.
Color test page for HP, Epson, Canon, Brother and laser printers
Every color printer can print this sheet, and each brand also has its own built-in check. HP printers print a Print Quality Report with color blocks, Epson and Canon print a nozzle check that shows each ink as rows of fine lines, and Brother inkjets print a print quality check from the Ink menu. The hp printer test page color, epson printer test page color and canon printer test page color guides list the buttons and menus for each model, and the brother printer test page covers Brother inkjets and color lasers.
On a color laser printer, colored fringes around black text or colors that do not line up mean the four toners are out of register. Color lasers have a calibration or registration step in the printer's menu that fixes this in a minute. Streaks along the paper point to a toner cartridge, drum or belt, and a black and white printer test page helps you tell toner problems from color problems.
What a color test page cannot measure
The sheet shows whether every ink prints and mixes, but it cannot measure how accurate the colors are. That needs a spectrophotometer, which reads printed patches and builds a color profile for one printer, ink and paper. The page also cannot read ink levels or start a cleaning; those come from the printer's own menu or app. To keep a copy for later, the color printer test page pdf prints the same sheet in A4 or US Letter.
Color test page questions
What colors should a color printer test page show?
The four inks on their own, cyan, magenta, yellow and black, then the mixes red, green and blue, a neutral gray and ramps from white to full color. A printer test page with all colors also needs fine text and a gray scale, since those show sharpness and color balance.
How do I print a color test page on an HP printer?
Choose Full color page above, press Print this page, select the HP in the print window and print at 100%. HP printers with a screen also print their own Print Quality Report from the Tools or Reports menu, which the hp printer test page color guide walks through.
Why is my printer not printing yellow?
The yellow cartridge or tank is empty, not seated, still taped, or its nozzles are blocked. Yellow faults are hard to see on white paper, so look at the red and green bars on the test page: without yellow, red turns pink and green turns blue. Run a head cleaning, then print a Single color page in yellow.
Does a color test page work on a laser printer?
Yes. Color laser printers build every color from cyan, magenta, yellow and black toner, so the same bars apply. Streaks on a laser print run along the paper and point to a toner cartridge, drum or transfer belt rather than nozzles.
Why do printed colors look different from my screen?
A screen makes colors from bright red, green and blue light, while a printer lays ink on paper that reflects room light. The brightest screen blues and greens are outside what ink can print, and most screens are set far brighter than a sheet of paper looks.
Can I download the color test page as a PDF?
Yes. Press Download PDF above for the sheet you picked, or see the color printer test page pdf list, which has US Letter and A4 files for every test page.