06-29-2017, 05:38 PM
As far as I can tell, it was installing the HP printer package that you mentioned which was the correct solution. I thought the solution had NOT worked, because after installing, I tested printing again with Chrome browser (which insists on printing in color no matter how the printer settings are configured - something I didn't realize at the time). I should have at that point also tried to print from LibreOffice, but did not because I had (incorrectly) assumed that the Chrome color-printing and the LibreOffice color-printing were caused by the same glitch. In actual fact, Chrome was a special case, something I had not realized.
After looking into the lpoptions command mentioned on the stackexchange link you gave (and making no changes after seeing that my printer looked to be correctly configured for black ink only), I at that point tested out the printing again from LibreOffice and from Firefox. Both printed by default in black and white. Chrome still prints in color by default, but as mentioned it seems to be a Chrome-specific issue.
So, to sum up for anyone else facing the same problem that I did (with this type of printer):
1. Install the HP Printer Control Panel using the code that [member=2]Jerry[/member] gave above.
2. Make sure your settings are set for black ink only in the HP control panel.
3. All done. You should be printing in black ink only now. At least, it's working that way fine in Firefox and LibreOffice for me. Please note that (at least for me and my setup) Chrome by default still insists on printing in color. If you also see this behavior with Chrome, consider not using Chrome browser and using Firefox instead if default black ink printing is important to you.
(Or if you want to use Chrome to print in black ink then just override per-document every time you print from it; just use the printing option circled at the bottom of Screenshot B in my original post above and change from color to black ink in the dialog box that is pulled up).
Thanks so much Jerry for fixing my problem, and I'm sorry for complicating things when I didn't realize that the Chrome behavior and the LibreOffice behavior arose from different causes.
After looking into the lpoptions command mentioned on the stackexchange link you gave (and making no changes after seeing that my printer looked to be correctly configured for black ink only), I at that point tested out the printing again from LibreOffice and from Firefox. Both printed by default in black and white. Chrome still prints in color by default, but as mentioned it seems to be a Chrome-specific issue.
So, to sum up for anyone else facing the same problem that I did (with this type of printer):
1. Install the HP Printer Control Panel using the code that [member=2]Jerry[/member] gave above.
2. Make sure your settings are set for black ink only in the HP control panel.
3. All done. You should be printing in black ink only now. At least, it's working that way fine in Firefox and LibreOffice for me. Please note that (at least for me and my setup) Chrome by default still insists on printing in color. If you also see this behavior with Chrome, consider not using Chrome browser and using Firefox instead if default black ink printing is important to you.
(Or if you want to use Chrome to print in black ink then just override per-document every time you print from it; just use the printing option circled at the bottom of Screenshot B in my original post above and change from color to black ink in the dialog box that is pulled up).
Thanks so much Jerry for fixing my problem, and I'm sorry for complicating things when I didn't realize that the Chrome behavior and the LibreOffice behavior arose from different causes.
Using Linux Lite for everything now. I put it on my desktop and my laptop. Woohoo!