6 Steps To Safely Fix A Printer Paper Jam

It has happened to all of us. Inevitably the day will come when dreadfully, a paper jam will occur from our home or office printer. The following guide will hopefully help you to safely remove a paper jam from your printer.

Paper Jam

A paper jam in your printer can be infuriating, especially as they seem to have a strange tendency to happen at the time when you most need your printer to just work. Cited by many as a common inkjet printer problem, paper jams can occur because of any number of reasons: the paper in the tray is crooked; a page (or pages) may be crinkled; using paper that has been folded; sometimes even a staple may be attached to the paper. It is always a good idea to check the stack of paper carefully before printing to prevent a jam from occurring, especially if you are using more expensive photo paper.

Most printer manufactures have their own unique design of alerting you to a printer jam. Often it is a sound along with a display of a flashing red or yellow exclamation point. If your home or office printer suddenly jams in the middle of a printout, the following simple steps will assist you in fixing the problem.

1. Have a look inside the printer: find where the door opening to the rollers is located on your printer. On some printers there are two doors, located in the rear and one in the front. Press the tab to release the door.
2. Check the rear door first: if the jammed paper is not in the rear rollers, cheque the front door.
3. Start to clear the paper: if the paper is jammed in the rollers, gently pull, do not force or rip it out fast. It may cause the paper to tear even more, resulting in small torn pieces that are more difficult to remove.
4. Sometimes paper is tightly jammed: if this is the case, very slowly and gently, wiggle the paper side-to-side while softly pulling at the same time. Usually it will loosen and set free.
5. Check for scraps of paper: if there are little fragments of paper left among the rollers, a flashlight might help you to see easier. For safety reasons, unplug your printer for the next step.
6. Use tweesers to grasp smaller pieces of paper: as mentioned in step 4, wiggle, and gently pull towards you to clear any small pieces of scrap paper from your printer.

Don’t forget that you should be regularly maintaining your printer, which is an easy and relatively quick task with the benefit of making your printer last longer and print more reliably.

If the above steps fail and you still aren’t able to free the paper, consult your manual for further instructions: there is usually a troubleshooting guide to assist you. Making a call directly to the manufacturer is another option. You may also choose to contact the manufacturer online for assistance as some of them offer live text-based customer support.

Advertisement