kenrivers :
When you print something outside of Notepad is black showing up as a true black? Is the black ink cartridge low or empty?
If this keeps happening you can download something like Open Office (http://www.openoffice.org/) or Libre Office (https://www.libreoffice.org/download) and try copying and pasting to the word processing app and then try printing. I have used Open Office and the word processor has more features than Wordpad. Others seem to prefer Libre Office.
Great advice, yes the black ink cartridge was empty, thought that I'd changed it recently when I replaced colour cartridge.
Thanks for your help , very much appreciated.