Ink Friendly

Printer tests · Print-true

Nozzle check pattern

A printable nozzle check: one comb of 100 fine lines per ink channel, at a pitch that never changes, plus a solid bar for coverage. The point is not the single print — it is that this file prints identically every time, so the sheet you take after a head clean is genuinely comparable with the one you took before it. Drawn at true millimeter size in your browser; nothing uploaded, no sign-up, no watermark.

SheetLetter 8.5×11 in Patterncombs + solid bars Channels4 of 4 (C M Y K) Est. ink3.6% Pages1 sheet

Print at 100% or "Actual size". The comb is always 100 lines at a 1.5 mm pitch — paper size, orientation and margin move it around the page but never change it, which is what makes two prints comparable.

How this nozzle check works

Each channel gets a solid bar and a comb. The comb is 100 vertical lines, 1.5 mm apart, 12 mm long and 0.25 mm wide — chosen so the lines are fine enough that a weak nozzle shows as a gap rather than a thin line, but not so fine that a healthy printer drops them anyway. The colors are sRGB values, not CMYK ink: cyan is #00ffff, magenta #ff00ff, and the light channels are those same values at a 50% tint. Your driver decides which cartridge answers for each of them. The "Est. ink" figure in the readout is measured off the geometry as it is drawn — every line's length times its width times the ink its color implies — which is why choosing "Combs only" visibly drops it: that mode exists for people running a check on a cartridge they are trying not to empty.

The fixed geometry is the feature, not a limitation we have not got round to. A nozzle check is a longitudinal measurement: its value comes from holding today's sheet against last week's, or the one before a head clean against the one after. That comparison collapses the moment the pattern changes between prints, so nothing about the comb is adjustable, and the numbers that define it — segment count, pitch, line length, line width, and the channel list — are stamped at the foot of every sheet that carries a comb, so an undated print in a drawer still identifies itself. ("Solid bars only" draws no comb, so that sheet stamps the channel list alone rather than describing geometry it does not carry.) Paper size, orientation and margin move the block around the page; they never touch it. If an eight-channel set will not fit at your margin, the sheet reduces the channel count and tells you in words rather than squeezing the pitch.

The honest limits. This sheet tells you whether ink is arriving, not whether the color that arrives is right: it cannot measure printed color, because a browser has no instrument on the output side and reading a printed patch means putting a colorimeter or a spectrophotometer on it. Nor is it a diagnosis. A gap in a comb is consistent with a blocked nozzle, but also with a nearly-empty cartridge, damp paper, or a print head that needs seating — the sheet shows you a symptom and the rest is yours. Cleaning cycles spend real ink, so reprinting the same pattern before running another clean is usually the cheaper move, and two cleans with no change in the comb is a sign to stop rather than continue. And as with every sheet here, all of it assumes the actual-size precondition: at anything other than 100% ("Actual size") the pitch on paper is not the pitch on the page, and the comparison is void.

Frequently asked questions

What does a nozzle check pattern actually show?
Each channel prints a comb of 100 fine lines at a fixed spacing. A nozzle that is firing puts down a line; one that is blocked or misfiring leaves a gap, a faint line, or a line that has drifted out of step with its neighbours. Read each comb across and count the gaps — one or two at an edge is common and often clears on its own; a run of missing lines in the middle of a comb, or a whole comb that prints pale, is the pattern that says a channel is genuinely struggling. The solid bar above each comb is the coarse version of the same question: a bar with white streaks through it is a channel that cannot lay down flat coverage.
Why can't I change the comb pitch or the number of lines?
Because the whole use of this sheet is comparing one print against another — before and after a head clean, or this month against last. That comparison only means something if the pattern is identical both times, so the geometry is fixed by construction: 100 lines, 1.5 mm apart, 12 mm long, 0.25 mm wide, on every paper size, every orientation and every margin. All four of those numbers, plus the channel list, are printed at the foot of every sheet that carries a comb, so a print you find in a drawer still identifies itself. Paper size, orientation and margin move where the combs sit on the page; they never change the combs.
How do I print the nozzle check at the right size?
Set the print dialog's scale to 100% (or "Actual size"). "Fit to page" rescales the whole sheet by a few percent, which would quietly change the comb pitch and break the comparison the sheet exists for. Every sheet prints two reference rules near the foot — one exactly 100 mm, one exactly 4 inches — so you can check the scale with a ruler before you trust anything above them. Choosing "Save as PDF" as the destination works the same way: your browser writes the file, on your device, at whatever scale the dialog is set to.
My printer has six or eight inks — does this cover them?
Choose 6 or 8 in the channel control and the sheet adds light cyan and light magenta, then light black and light light black. Be clear about what that means: the light channels are printed as a 50% sRGB tint of their parent, and whether your driver routes that tint through a separate light cartridge or mixes it from the full-strength one is the driver's decision, not something this page can set. On a small paper size or a wide margin there may not be room for all eight combs at the fixed pitch — when that happens the sheet says so in words and prints the channels that fit rather than shrinking the comb.
Does a clean-looking comb mean my colors are correct?
No. A comb tells you whether ink is coming out, not whether the color that comes out is right — the patches on this sheet are sRGB values handed to your browser, and this page never sees the paper, so it cannot measure printed color at all. That needs a colorimeter or a spectrophotometer held against the sheet. The other half of the honest answer is about cleaning cycles: a head clean spends real ink, so it is worth reprinting the same pattern once before running another one, and worth stopping if two cleans in a row have not changed the comb.

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