"Won't work when ANY ink tank is empty."
They do that because if you were allowed to print anyway the empty cartridge will continue to try to use it's printhead despite it being empty, and if it does that the printhead for that ink color will burn out in a short time - the ink above it and flowing through it is what keeps it cooled.
Sometimes you can turn off the use of a printhead, but that usually applies to cartridges with printheads built in.
Check the settings in Printers..... - name of printer - Properties. Sometimes they can be set to use only one cartridge.
Unfortunately whether a printer you are thinking of buying has that feature is often difficult to determine beforehand. You could look at the Properties of other people's printers, or of printers hooked up to computers in stores, or dig around on the manufacturer's web sites looking at specs and FAQ's and manuals for that model.
I know some Lexmark and HP inkjet printers that use cartridges with printheads built in have the software settings to use only one cartridge.
e.g. the HP pcs1210 all in one, and probably others in that series, but it has relatively tiny cartridges.
Alternatives?
- You don't have to buy new cartridges every time.
Most cartridges can be easily filled many times, in a half hour or less, by you using an ink refill kit and simple procedures, or as Petit Jean said you can take them to a local place and have them filled for about half the price of a new cartridge. However, you are not supposed to leave a printhead inlet that uses an ink tank exposed to the air for more than a short time.
If you have ink tanks and you don't want to bother with that, you need just one spare tank per color whuch can be clones rather than name brand, and you can get the empty ones filled at a local place that does that when you have time to do that.
Get a laser b&w printer and forget color altogether - many are relatively cheap these days - it's a long time between toner cartridges.
Get a laser color printer - more expensive, but it's a long time between toner cartridges.
Buy an older used printer that can use just one cartridge at a time,
e.g.
- an old Canon that uses BC-02 or BC-20 black cartridges - the cartridges are still easy to find, a reasonable 2x ml capacity each, and they can easily be refilled a dozen or more times.
BJ-200 series is black only, has to be manually turned on; BJC-2xx , BJC-4xxx series use one cartridge at a time, most will turn on automatically). I don't recommend the color cartridge for BJC-4xxx at all (uses three tiny tanks), but the color and Photo for BJC-2xx, and the Photo for BJC-4xxx are okay, but photo printing is very slow
- Lexmark Z32, Z22 - uses two cartridges but you can select only one in the Property or specific printer app. settings. You may have to download updated software to do that. Cartridges are still easily available, a reasonable 2x ml capacity, or more (high capacity available some places). If you do use color or Photo too, cartridges are larger than most current ones, and printing a photo is much faster than for the Canon BJC-2xx or 4xxx series, but nowhere near as fast as current printers.
