Black and white printer test page
Press Ctrl+P and this page prints a monochrome test sheet: a solid black bar, a 21-step gray ramp, and line weights from a 0.1 mm hairline to 2 mm. It suits black-only printing on any inkjet or laser printer. Nothing is uploaded.
The sheet prints by itself. Press Ctrl+P, or Cmd+P on a Mac, and print at 100% scale on plain paper.
For a fuller workout, print the color test page with gradient bars and an alignment grid, or grab the charts as files on the PDF page.
How to use
- Load plain paper, press Ctrl+P (Cmd+P on a Mac), and set the scale to 100%. Fit-to-page shrinking changes the physical size of the lines and the ramp.
- Check the solid black bar for even coverage. Vertical white stripes mean a partially clogged black nozzle on an inkjet, or a toner and fuser fault on a laser.
- Read the 21-step gray ramp. Adjacent steps should stay distinct, and every gray should look neutral. Light steps that vanish point at a density setting; grays with a color tint mean color ink or color toner is joining in.
- Compare the line weights. The 0.1 mm hairline tests the driver's finest output and may drop out on draft settings. If thin lines break up, raise the print quality and print again.
Frequently asked questions
Does printing this page send anything anywhere?
No. The sheet is drawn in your browser tab and printed through the browser's own print dialog. Nothing is uploaded, nothing is stored, and the page sets no cookies. Toner and ink are the only things this page spends.
When is the black and white page the better test?
Use it for mono laser printers, for any printer set to black-only, or when the color tanks are empty and you want to judge black output on its own. It also saves color ink while you chase a black-only problem such as banding or faint text.
What do the line weight samples show?
Nine weights from 0.1 to 2 mm, drawn as horizontal and vertical strokes. Hairlines disappear first when quality settings drop, while heavy strokes reveal bleeding, ink spread, or toner scatter. A hairline can look gray on plain paper even from a healthy printer; what matters is that it stays continuous.
Why does the gray ramp matter on a laser printer?
Toner lays down dots, and light grays are where banding shows. Steps that merge or pulse mean the engine's halftoning or the fuser is struggling at low coverage. On an inkjet, the same ramp shows whether black text is being supplemented by color inks, which appears as a tint in the midtones.
Does the sheet need special paper?
No. Plain office paper gives the honest result, and that is the paper most printing happens on. Photo paper changes black density and dry times, so treat a print on photo paper as a separate test.