How to check the ink level in your printer

This post will teach you how to check the ink levels on your ink cartridges in six hassle-free steps, which you can do at home or the office.

Nowadays, it is possible to check the ink level in the cartridge to know when it is about to run out. This tool will save time by helping you know exactly when your cartridge is about to die, therefore, you can be prepared and have a new one ready. Also, you must keep in mind that this tool will only work with original ink cartridge from the printer company brand.

How do ink level monitors work?

Ink level monitors are a small program that is installed with your printer drivers. They are not attached to the ink cartridges themselves, which are entirely replaceable but come with the drivers.

This system keeps track of the exact number of pages that have been printed with a particular ink cartridge. For example, an ink cartridge could have been manufactured to print 200 pages, so it will only allow printing this quantity.

If you install another ink cartridge on your printer and it happens to have a different page yield than the one that came before, your printer will recognize it and start a new page counting cycle.

Procedure for reviewing the ink levels in a printer:

Step #1:

First, install the proper set of drivers for your printer. If you have used the driver installation CD that came along with your printer, you may have installed the complete set of drivers instead of the basic package.

This is something the program will ask you to decide when installing the drivers on your computer, you can choose between the basic or full set of drivers.
Here is a picture of how the driver files should look like on the original website.

know how much ink the printer has

As you can see, the first set of drivers is the basic one, and the second one is the full version that includes advanced functions and many different add-ons. If you are using an original brand new ink cartridges, we recommend installing the second set of drivers.

Step #2:

Once you have the full set of printer drivers at hand, whether from the original CD or the brand website, go to the start menu on your computer and then click on control panel or configurations.

see print devices

Step #3:

You must now locate the printer which ink level you want to check at the moment. Once you have found it, right-click on it and select the printing preferences option on the menu.

go to printer properties

Step #4:

Select the services widget on the upper side of the displayed window, and then click on the system review option at the top of the new window.

Step #5:

Look for an option that will let you see the current ink level in your cartridges. You will now see a graph representing your cartridge's ink levels. This estimate is not entirely accurate, but it can certainly be helpful.

If you happen to refill your ink cartridges, you will not be able to obtain this estimate. In this case, we recommend you download and install a page counter program. (Please visit our post about this page counter program).

These tools will help you find out when your ink cartridges are running low on ink. If you need any additional help with this post, do not hesitate to leave a comment in the section below. We will gladly assist you as soon as possible.