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Nozzle check pattern

A printable nozzle check to run before and after a head clean. Each ink channel gets one comb of 100 fine lines at a pitch that never changes, plus a solid bar for coverage. This file prints identically every time, so you can hold the sheet you take after a head clean against the one you took before it and compare them line by line. Your browser draws it at true millimeter size; nothing is uploaded, and there is no sign-up or watermark.

Adjust

Print at 100% or "Actual size". The comb is always 100 lines at a 1.5 mm pitch; a different paper, orientation or margin only moves it on the page, so two prints stay comparable.

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

How this nozzle check works

Print at 100% ("Actual size") and read each comb for gaps. If you find some, run your printer's head clean, print the same pattern again, and hold the two sheets side by side. Keep the sheet afterwards: the same pattern printed next month is drawn exactly the same way, so you can compare this month's print against last month's. 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 up as a gap, yet wide enough that a healthy printer does not drop them. Each row is labelled with its channel code, name and sRGB value (the first reads "C · Cyan #00ffff"), so you can tell which channel a gap belongs to. Choose 4, 6 or 8 channels to match your printer's ink set, and pick "Combs only" or "Solid bars only" in the pattern control to print just one half of the check. The Details panel below the sheet shows the paper, the pattern, how many channels are on the page, the ink estimate and the page count.

Nothing about the comb is adjustable, because a comparison between two prints only works if the pattern is identical in both. The stamp at the foot of every sheet that carries a comb lists its segment count, pitch, line length and line width, followed by the channels; "Solid bars only" draws no comb, so that sheet stamps the channel list alone. If an eight-channel set will not fit at your margin, the sheet prints fewer channels and says so in a note, and the pitch stays at its fixed value. The rows print in a fixed order, C, M, Y and K first and the light channels after them, so a reduced sheet keeps the first rows and the Channels readout shows how many made it. At the default margin all eight fit in portrait on both paper sizes, whichever pattern you pick. Landscape has less height, so with combs and solid bars at least two channels are left off, and "Combs only" prints seven at the default margin. The colors are sRGB values, not CMYK ink: cyan is #00ffff, magenta #ff00ff, and each light channel is a 50% tint of its parent (light cyan #80ffff, light magenta #ff80ff, light black #808080, light light black #c0c0c0), so your driver decides which cartridge answers for each of them. The "Est. ink" figure in the readout is worked out from the geometry as it is drawn (each bar's area, and each line's length times its width, times the ink its color implies). That is why "Combs only" drops it from 3.6% to 1.1% on a default Letter sheet: the pattern is there for checking a cartridge you are trying not to empty.

The sheet shows whether ink is arriving, and it cannot measure printed color: a browser has no instrument on the output side, and reading a printed patch takes a colorimeter or a spectrophotometer. A gap in a comb can come from a blocked nozzle, a nearly empty cartridge, damp paper or a print head that needs seating, and the sheet cannot tell you which.

Frequently asked questions

What does a nozzle check pattern 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, means that channel is struggling. The solid bar above each comb asks the same question more coarsely: white streaks through a bar mean the channel cannot lay down flat coverage.
Why can't I change the comb pitch or the number of lines?
Because the sheet exists to compare one print with 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: 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 and 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 changes the comb pitch and breaks the comparison the sheet exists for. Every sheet prints two reference rules near the foot, one exactly 100 mm and 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?
Yes. Choose 6 or 8 in the channel control and the sheet adds light cyan and light magenta, then light black and light light black. The light channels print as a 50% sRGB tint of their parent, and your driver decides whether that tint goes through a separate light cartridge or is mixed from the full-strength one; this page cannot set that. In landscape, or on Letter paper with a wide margin, there is not always room for all eight channels at the fixed pitch. When that happens, a note says so and the sheet prints the channels that fit, with the comb at its usual size.
Does a clean-looking comb mean my colors are correct?
No. A comb tells you whether ink is coming out, and nothing about whether that ink is the right color. 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. On cleaning cycles: a head clean spends real ink, so reprint the same pattern once before running another one, and stop if two cleans in a row have not changed the comb.

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