I.. think about it when my printer says its low and stock up on refills, but don't replace them until the quality is unbearable.

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Read the latest DigiYumi cartoon "Commercial Wars - Mac and PC" here

when I can't read anything it prints - then I replace mine.

Kellie,
Note : Do at least a monthly test print if you don't use it a lot.
Try a nozzle cleaning and test print before decideing it's empty.

I have a HP DeskJet 842C

Auro ?
What printer has this feature ?
Smax,
You can always read the file.
My printing is for my ring binders and frameing.
I need Best quality for color.
Black is ok for the odd thing that might not have a
save as a file option.
Note : Printing Internet page of white text.
I know how.

To my knowledge, most (if not all) modern ink jet printers will tell you when your ink cartridge is getting low...if you have an appropriate two way communications path with your printer. The times when this may not happen are when you make use of sharing the printer through Windoze and are printing from a remote printer (I think this is the case) or if you make use of some of the devices that allow you to turn your standard USB printer into a network printer (i..e. buy and use some sort of special print server device or a network hard drive with a print server function included). If you use the printer's "natural" attachment method such as the direct USB cable, its own built-in ethernet or WiFi ability, then usually it will have that two way communication. And if the printer has some sort of display screen, no matter how you hook it up, it will tell you when a cartridge is low (i.e. my all-in-one HP D135, which I don't have hooked up to print to in general, has such a screen).

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[soapbox] Backup good...no backup bad!! [/soap box]

My HP OfficeJet D135 will post a message on the display screen when it considers the cartridges to be low. The only way to make the message go away is to hit the enter key on the printer then it will go away and will print (faxes, copies, etc) again. If I had it hooked to a computer by the USB cable, then it would also warn me on the computer.

My HP DeskJet 9600 has a software tookbox that when I open it give an estimate of how much ink is left in each cartridge (it shows about 80% full for the color cartridge and about 15% full for the black cartridge right now). It will also warn me by way of the computer (i.e. a message pops up on the computer that it is hooked to) when it determines that the cartridge is low.

Now, my HP LaserJet 6MP does not warn me about toner cartridge level, but it is about a 10 year old printer, so I don't believe the technology was wide spread then. But, I can usually tell when it is getting low as quality drops. When that happens, however, there is still plenty of time, you must just take the toner cartridge out and rock it back and forth to get the toner more evenly distributed (the loss in quality is generally in the form of streaks).

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[soapbox] Backup good...no backup bad!! [/soap box]