CMYK Separation Test Page
Print isolated cyan, magenta, yellow and black blocks.
Print settings
Print this on the paper you normally use, then examine each section. What a healthy result looks like is described above each pattern on the sheet.
RunTheTests CMYK Separation Test Page · print at 100% · plain paper
CMYK — solid ink blocks
Ink coverage — solid density blocks
How this test page works
Each ink is printed as a solid block on its own, so a faded or missing colour is immediately obvious and tells you which cartridge to check.
What the results mean
- Isolated channels
- One colour missing or weak points directly at that cartridge or its nozzles.
Common problems and fixes
- A colour is weak rather than missing
- Partial output usually means partly blocked nozzles rather than an empty cartridge. Run one cleaning cycle from the printer menu, print the nozzle check again, and only repeat if it improved — two cycles that change nothing point at a genuinely empty cartridge or a dried head rather than at a clog.
- The blocks print but the colours look wrong
- Wrong is different from missing, and it is a colour management problem rather than a hardware one. Set the paper type to what is loaded, turn off any vivid or auto-enhance option, and expect printed colour never to match a backlit screen exactly — the two use different colour models with different gamuts.
- Cyan and magenta look swapped or muddy
- Almost always refilled or third-party cartridges installed in the wrong slots, or ink from a previous cartridge still in the lines. Check the cartridge positions against the printer's own diagram, then run a cleaning cycle to flush the lines and reprint.
Frequently asked questions
One colour is missing entirely
That cartridge is empty or its nozzles are blocked. Run the nozzle-check page to confirm, then a cleaning cycle, and replace the cartridge if cleaning does not restore it.
Why print each colour separately instead of a mixed image?
Because a mixed image hides a failure. A photograph with weak cyan still looks like a photograph, just slightly warm, and most people will not spot it. A solid cyan block next to solid magenta, yellow and black makes a failing channel obvious in a second, and tells you exactly which cartridge to look at.
Will this use a lot of ink?
More than a page of text, since it is four solid blocks, but far less than the repeated cleaning cycles people run when they cannot identify which colour has failed. Diagnosing with one print and cleaning once beats cleaning three times on spec — each cycle spends a surprising amount of ink flushing the heads.