Brother HL-3040CN Leaflet

Users can change the Color/Mono settings on the printer driver as follows

Auto
The machine checks the content of the document for color. If color is detected anywhere in 

the document, it will print the whole of the document using all the colors. If no color content 

is detected, it will print the document in monochrome.

The default setting on your machine is “Auto”.
Color
Whether the document contains color or just monochrome, your machine will print the 

document using all the colors. This means, for example, that the machine will consume color 

toner to print documents comprised solely of black text. If either the Cyan, Magenta or 

Yellow toner reaches the end of its life while printing a document in Color mode, the print 

job cannot be completed. Users can choose to start the print job again in Mono mode, as 

long as black toner is available.
Mono
Select this mode if the document has only black and grayscale text and/or objects. If your 

document contains color, selecting Mono mode prints the document in 256 levels of gray.

Users who print primarily black text should select Mono mode to prolong the life of their color 
toner cartridges.

 

This product detects the life of the toner cartridges using the following two methods:



This product has an optical sensor that detects the remaining toner by checking the level 

at which toner in a cartridge interrupts light transmitted through windows on either side of 

the cartridge. Toner that sticks to the windows or is unevenly distributed in the cartridge 

can interfere with the functioning of this sensor, but such interference can often be 

resolved by removing, rocking and replacing the cartridge.



This product has a function that will count the rotations of each toner cartridge’s developer 

roller and stop the print operation when the upper rotation limit is reached. The upper limit is 

set above the number of rotations that would be required for the cartridge to perform 

consistently with its advertised page yield. This function is intended to reduce the risk of poor 

print quality and damage to the printer. Users who are not printing color documents can “turn 

off” this function for their color cartridges by printing in Mono mode (For HL-XXXX, see Printer 

Driver in Chapter 2 of the User’s Guide.

For DCP-XXXX/MFC-XXXX, see Basic tab in Chapter 1 of the Software User’s Guide.).