Hello there biggoofy4!: you can leave the ink cartridges in your printer. however you have to get postal grade tape to close & secure all the openings so that nothing(especially those aforementioned ink cartridges) gets broke or leak into the printer
then you have to get a box big enough to hold the printer & sufficient insulation to ensure against it bouncing around in the box while in shipping.
this is what I did on a Sunday July 2012 when I shipped a 2005 HP Deskjet 6520 printer to a friend & her daughter for her school work the following fall
both say that the printer still works flawlessly including setting itself up as the default printer even though their PC still had drivers for the predescessor 2007 model Deskjet 6988.
good luck
hope this helps & enlightens you
spacechild