Red Printer Test Page
Run a free red printer test to check that one specific color channel — print it directly from your browser in seconds.
Red Test Print
Here's something most people don't realize: a standard four-color (CMYK) printer has no red ink cartridge at all. The red you see on a printed page is built by layering magenta and yellow ink directly on top of each other. This test isolates that combination so you can check whether your printer is overlaying those two colors correctly.
Standard CMYK printers don't carry red ink on its own — this color is built by overlaying magenta and yellow. See below for what that means when something looks off.
Before you print: open the print dialog (Ctrl/Cmd+P) and enable Background graphics under "More settings." Without it, browsers strip background colors by default and the blocks below will print blank.
Solid Red Block
Red Tint Gradient (100% → White)
Text Sharpness in Red
What This Reveals About Your Printer
Because red is a mix, not a direct ink, a bad-looking red block almost never means "the red is broken" — it means one of its two ingredients, magenta or yellow, is off, or the two layers aren't lining up precisely on top of each other. A red that looks orange usually points to a weak magenta; a red that looks pink or washed out usually points to a weak yellow. A red block with visible fringing or a slight double-image effect at the edges is a print head alignment issue, not a color problem at all — the two ink layers are landing slightly out of position relative to each other.
Red Test Page FAQ
My printer doesn't have a red cartridge — how can it print red at all?
Standard CMYK printers build red by printing magenta and yellow ink in the same spot, letting the two overlap. There's no dedicated red ink in a typical 4-color inkjet or laser printer — red is always a mix, not a direct channel.
My red looks orange. Which ink is the problem?
An orange-leaning red usually means the magenta layer is weaker than the yellow layer in that overlap — run our cyan/magenta/yellow test pages individually to confirm which specific channel needs attention.
Why does my red look doubled or fringed at the edges instead of a clean solid color?
That's a print head alignment issue, not an ink problem — the magenta and yellow layers that make up red are landing in slightly different positions instead of stacking exactly on top of each other. Run our alignment test page to confirm and fix it.
Related
- Full Color Printer Test Page (all channels at once)
- Nozzle Check Test Page (per-color clog detection)
- CMYK vs RGB Explained — why screen and print colors never match exactly
Other individual colors: Yellow, Blue, Cyan, Green, Magenta.