If I have my ink jet set so it just prints black and white...

[Infos]

if the black cartridge runs out will continue to print black using the color cartridge
I have a Lexmark Z52
and I think this is what it is doing right now :disgust:

 

[Danzilla]

I'm not sure about the Lexmark brand, but for others when they run out of ink, they just keep trying to print with the empty cartridge. I don't think there is any way for the printer to know for sure when the cartridge is empty so it's probably not printing black using the color ink.

D.