Printer Printing Slowly? Causes and Fixes

We hear 'my printer has become slow' most weeks at the counter. Very often the printer is fine: a setting, a driver or a connection has changed. Before you spend money on a new machine, work through this list. It applies to HP LaserJets, Canon and Brother lasers and Epson, Canon and HP ink tanks.

Step 1: which kind of slow is it?

• Slow to start — you press Print and wait 30 seconds or more before anything happens, then pages come out at normal speed. Look at warm-up, spooling, the driver and the connection.
• Slow while printing — pages come out one at a time with long gaps, or slower than the box says. Look at quality settings, paper type, the file and the printer's rated speed.
• Slow only on one file — a heavy PDF, a scanned book or a photo. The file is the problem, not the printer.

Slow to start: the first page takes too long

• The printer was asleep. A laser has to heat its fuser before the first page; deep sleep or auto-off adds a few seconds. That is normal. If it bothers you, lengthen the sleep delay in the printer's web page or control panel — at the cost of a little more electricity (see how much power a printer uses).
• Weak Wi-Fi. A printer at the edge of the router's range spends a long time receiving the job. Move it closer, or use Ethernet or USB. Our Wi-Fi vs LAN vs USB guide explains the trade-off.
• A WSD port on Windows. Printers added automatically often use a 'WSD' port that can be slow to wake and goes 'offline'. Change it to a Standard TCP/IP port pointing at the printer's IP address — the steps are in our driver and offline fix guide.
• A stuck queue. Old failed jobs block new ones. Clear the queue and restart the Print Spooler service (same guide).
• The wrong driver. A generic or 'basic' driver installed by Windows can be slower than the manufacturer's full or universal driver. Install the right one for your model.

Slow while printing: pages crawl out

• Print quality set to Best, 1200 dpi or ProRes. Fine for a certificate, wasteful for a 50-page assignment. Set the driver default to Normal or 600 dpi.
• Paper type set to Heavy, Card or Glossy. Lasers slow down for thick media so the toner fuses properly. Set Plain paper unless you are actually printing on card.
• Narrow paper. Many lasers slow down after a few envelopes or small cards so the ends of the fuser don't overheat. That is protection, not a fault.
• Quiet mode. Some HP and Brother models have a quiet mode that lowers the speed. Turn it off in the printer's settings if speed matters more.
• Duplex. Automatic double-sided printing is slower than single-sided on most desktop lasers because each sheet goes through twice. It still saves paper — see how to print double-sided.
• Ink tank expectations. Ink tank speeds on the box are often 'draft' figures; ISO speeds, which match real documents, are much lower — around 8–10 pages a minute in black on an Epson L3210 or Canon G2010. Draft mode prints faster but paler.

Slow on one file: heavy PDFs, scans and photos

A scanned book, a PDF full of photos or a CAD drawing can contain hundreds of megabytes of image data that the computer or printer must process page by page. Every printer slows down on these; older ones with little memory slow down most. In Adobe Acrobat Reader, try Advanced in the Print dialog and tick Print As Image, or reduce the scan resolution before printing. For a scanned document you will print many times, save a smaller copy once — our scan to PDF guide suggests sensible resolutions.

When the printer itself is the bottleneck

A home laser rated at 14–20 pages per minute — an HP LaserJet 1020, P1102 or a Canon LBP2900 — will always feel slow in a shared office, and a worn pickup roller that misfeeds every few sheets adds pauses too (rollers are a cheap repair; see printer repair costs). If your office regularly prints long jobs, the cure is a faster engine: the HP LaserJet Pro M404dn prints 38 ppm with duplex and Ethernet, the P2055dn is a cheaper 33 ppm option, and the Enterprise M507 runs at 43 ppm. See what the numbers mean in printer specs explained.