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I am specifically interested in pro-ish photographic printers such as the Cannon Pro-1000 or the Epson P900. I am interested in printing long-ish prints (about 48"). I am concerned about getting 40" into the print and getting the "out of ink" warning. I know that both of these printers use an ink reservoir system, and there will still be ink in said reservoir. And, no, I would have no intention or desire to continue printing without replacing the cartridge immediately. The question is:

After I replace said cartridge, will the printer continue on and finish that print without ruining that print? Or, will I just have to start all over again?

I know it is physically and algorithmically possible to design a printer to do this. The question is: Do either of these printers have said algorithms?

To be very clear: I am NOT talking about waiting until the print head physically runs dry. I am talking about when the "red X" indicator comes on in the printer management software, which occurs well before the reservoir runs out and the print head runs dry.

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    \$\begingroup\$ While I'm not sure that you can change cartridges mid print, the amount of ink used by an inkjet printer can vary by how often you use it. The less often it's used, the more often it will have to do a cleaning cycle - which wastes ink. So I think pragmatically it comes down to you learning the behavior of what ever printer you have and estimating how big a print job you can complete. \$\endgroup\$
    – Peter M
    Commented Jul 22, 2023 at 14:50
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    \$\begingroup\$ You probably should contact the provider or manufacturer, or sales department for the specific info. \$\endgroup\$
    – Rafael
    Commented Jul 23, 2023 at 19:14
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    \$\begingroup\$ I have the Canon Pro 1000 - but as of now I never had a cartridge go out in mid print. I also had a search and could not find any info on this. \$\endgroup\$
    – Kai Mattern
    Commented Jul 24, 2023 at 9:50
  • \$\begingroup\$ Likely, if printing stopped and restarted, there would be a band on the print. How bad it would be depends on many variables, e.g., did air get into line during changeover that has to be purged by an automatic cleaning cycle. Though I cannot tell if large-tank printers such as the Epson Ecotank, meet your print standards, they hold far more ink than could be used in a 48" print job, and adding ink can be done without opening the feed line. This one has a 8.4" x 47.2" max size: epson.com/For-Home/Printers/Inkjet/… \$\endgroup\$
    – DrMoishe Pippik
    Commented Jul 26, 2023 at 22:25

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I have Canon Pro-1000 and have run out of ink mid-print. If you care, I ran out of CO, which is the most annoying and most-used 'color' - color optimizer, specifically. Well, basically, when you run out of ink, it prints a few fainter and fainter lines and then ejects the paper. And yes, you do get an error message.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ As I have the same printer, just for curiosity: Do you run it with aftermarket inks and the color gauge deactivated? Or with original canon cartridges? When I refill the cartridges at some point, the printer will detect that they cannot trust the info on the chip and the reading from the real ink flow sensors still show ok. It will then complain - but only between prints. Can be overridden with 5 seconds of holding the red triangle button at the expense of the ink fill state displayed for the color. \$\endgroup\$
    – Kai Mattern
    Commented Sep 13 at 5:45
  • \$\begingroup\$ @KaiMattern I'm planning to run aftermarket but for now am using original cartridges. \$\endgroup\$
    – Dmitri Nesteruk
    Commented Sep 14 at 8:09
  • \$\begingroup\$ Be careful: Some brands have problems with the yellow which then tends to clog the the yellow color channel due to a reaction with the residual original ink. Make sure you do good research on what inks you will be using. \$\endgroup\$
    – Kai Mattern
    Commented Sep 14 at 13:51
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In past experience Epson printers tend to refuse to start a print if there isn't enough ink to finish it. If the ink count is incorrect it would just print nothing for the rest of the page with no way to recover since there's effectively no such thing as an ink gauge sensor for the printer. For about 25 years it has taken extra effort to make this possible as all Epson's cartridges are chipped, and usually counted conservatively.

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