I've tried it and failed. I need to use astigmatism correcting reading glasses. However, with a magnifier, the dots are visible.
Nope. Most ink cartridges now include a chip that counts the number of pages printed. I call this a "refill prevention" or "profit protection" feature. If I fill the color carts with water in order to be allowed to print in black, the printer will eventually hit some page count limit and declare the cartridge to be "empty". Extra credit to HP for designing some of their printers to also check for the cartridge expiration date and declare it to be "past its useful life" even though it might be full of ink. However, in HP's benevolence and generosity, they have changed this to an advisory message than can be bypassed after decoding a cryptic hex error message and repeatedly performing a button pushing bypass ritual: