Speed up a slow printer
Draft mode, queue cleanup and wireless bottlenecks.
- In printing preferences, switch from Best/Photo to Normal or Draft for documents.
- Disable high-quality photo mode when printing PDFs or email.
- Cancel extra jobs in the queue. A stuck previous job makes every new job wait.
- Use USB for a speed test. If USB is fast and Wi‑Fi is slow, the network is the bottleneck — move closer or use 2.4/5 GHz correctly.
- On laser printers, wait for the fuser to warm from sleep; first-page-out is slower than pages 2–10.
- Update the driver. Old drivers sometimes rasterize every page on the PC instead of the printer.
Technician notes
- Borderless photo printing is always slower than documents with margins.
- Sleep delay can be raised in the printer menu if you print in bursts all day.