Printers have always been one of the most troubled parts of a computer. Whether connected by cable or via Wi-Fi, it is very common to find printers that do not work, that give error and can not communicate with the PC to print. The problems with the printers are due to all kinds of factors, from a Windows fault to an error in the driver, or simply because we dislike the printer, since there are errors that cannot even be explained.
As soon as you install a printer on Windows , it doesn’t usually cause problems. But as time passes the thing changes. When our printer fails and does not let us print we can go crazy to fix it, since most of the time we do not even see an error code. The most common is to turn the printer off and on , reset its settings, reconnect it again to Wi-Fi and even connect it to the PC to install the drivers from scratch.
Luckily, there are some errors that can be easily fixed. And today we are going to explain how to end the Windows 10 offline printer error.
Offline: how to print when the printer does not work
The truth is that this error does not need any explanation. When Windows tells us that our printer is offline, an error has occurred while trying to communicate with it and, because of that, it is impossible to print.
This may have occurred during power up, during a driver update or for many other causes.
When this happens, we can solve the problems in several different ways. The first thing we should try is to restart the printer to rule out the fault that it has been blocked. We can also try to restart the computer , since the person responsible for the error may be Windows itself.
If the printer still does not connect to the computer, the next step we are going to try is to solve the printer problems . Windows 10 comes with a large number of tools designed to correct all kinds of problems with the operating system. And of course, Microsoft has not forgotten about printers.
Within the menu Configuration> Update and security> Troubleshooting we can find a section to solve the problems related to the printer.
We run this problem solver and follow it until the end so that Windows analyzes all the parameters related to the connectivity of the printers and applies the necessary measures and corrections.
If all this still does not solve the problem, then the next step will be to verify that the printer driver is up to date. If it is not, we will install it manually by downloading the latest version (for compatibility issues) from the manufacturer’s website. If the driver is installed, what we have to do is update it. We also download the latest version of it, install it and voila.
Updating the PC with Windows Update can help us, since in addition to correcting errors in the operating system, it will also be responsible for downloading the latest versions of the drivers.
Configure Windows to force the use of offline printers
This configuration may seem a bit odd, but sometimes it works. It is not a solution, but if we are in a hurry it may help us out of trouble.
If we have the empty print queue (otherwise it will not work) we can take advantage of this trick to print, or at least try, on a printer that, despite being connected, appears as offline.
To do this, we move to the Settings menu> Devices> Printers and scanners and open the print queue of the printer in question.
We will open the Printer menu , and choose the option to use an offline printer .
This simple configuration will cause Windows to ignore the status of the printer as such, and try to print on it. Of course, if the printer is not really connected or has a problem, it obviously will not print. But if the printer is fine and the problem is a Windows identification failure, then we can use it without problems.
Although after printing, when we have time, we should try to solve the problem with the settings we have indicated above.
