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How to install a printer driver on a Windows XP

2008-01-24

To install a printer driver locally on a Windows XP based computer, follow these steps:

* Click Start, click Control Panel, click Printers and Other Hardware, and then click Printers and Faxes.
* Double-click Add Printer to start the Add Printer Wizard, and then click Next. Click Local printer, clear the Automatically detect and install check box, and then click Next.
* Click Create a new port, and then click Local Port in the Port type section.
* In the Port Name box, type the path to the printer in the following format, where server is the name of the print server and printer is the name of the printer:
* \serverprinter
* Click Next, and then select a Windows 2000 or Windows XP driver for your printer.

Click Next, and then follow the instructions to finish the wizard.

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HP Photosmart A626 Photo Printer

2008-01-20

The HP Photosmart A626 is a compact photo printer that features a special 4.8-inch touch-screen display and stylus to make printing photos easier than ever. Equipped with a small carrying handle, the attractive, boom box-shaped A626 is designed for you to carry along on trips or special occasions. The A626’s interface is intuitive and innovative.

 

The A626 uses a tri-color ink system, which includes cyan, magenta, and yellow; this means that blacks are processed, or a combination of those three colors, as opposed to a true black ink. As a result, test prints with the A626 lacked depth and shadow detail; the quality of black-and-white photos was especially inferior. But if you’re a scrapbooker or shutterbug looking for a quick, easy way to immortalize your memories in print, the A626 shouldn’t disappoint.

 

Weighing slightly more than three pounds, the A626 is a breeze to unpack and set up. After plugging in the power cord, installing an ink cartridge, loading some paper, and inserting a memory card, you’ll be ready to print. The A626 supports all the major memory cards—CompactFlash Type I and II, Memory Stick, Memory Stick Duo, Secure Digital/MultiMediaCard/Secure MultiMediaCard and xD-Picture Card—so you shouldn’t be left out.

 

Unlike most compact photo printers, the A626 has an input tray that can be adjusted to print on various paper sizes—up to 4-by-12-inch panoramas.

Though the A626 supports various paper sizes, the input tray capacity is surprisingly small, holding a maximum of 20 sheets. The input tray is accessible by prying open a cover on the back of the printer, leaving very little space to load paper. The A626’s design could be improved to offer both easier access to its input tray as well as greater paper capacity.

The A626’s strength is its innovative, user-friendly interface. While using this printer, I never had to consult the user manual. Even when it ran out of ink or paper, the printer’s bright screen displayed instructions on how to reload the media. The A626 also makes it straightforward to apply more advanced edits to your photos, such as effects, clip art, and cropping.

In terms of print quality, the A626 leaves something to be desired. The A626’s photos appear somewhat flat and dull; under light, you’ll see that dark colors look a little blotted. 

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How to choose the right Inkjet Printer

2008-01-17

Canon, Hewlett-Packard, Epson and Lexmark are responsible for the majority of inkjet printer sales in the global consumer market. If you have plans to buy an inkjet printer, this blog will definitely help you in arriving at the right choice.

What are the different types of inkjet printers available in the market?

Basic Inkjet Printers:

If you need to print web pages, spreadsheets and text documents, a basic inkjet printer that uses CMYK (cyan, magenta, yellow and key) or black ink will best suit your needs.

Inkjet Photo Printers:

To create higher-quality photo prints, use six-color inkjet photo printers with CMYK ink as well as light cyan and light magenta. Do you want to print photos directly from your digital camera? Go for inkjet photo printers with an LCD preview screen, PictBridge to transfer images directly from your digital camera over USB and media card slots compatible with the memory cards you use in your digital camera.

Portable Inkjet Printers:

You should select a printer that weighs less than 5 pounds if you travel a lot on business.

Multifunction Inkjet Printers:

This printer allows you to print, scan and copy, all at the touch of a button. However, you will you have to compromise a little on quality. Printers with faxing capabilities are also available.

Online shopping and comparison site BIGshop is a great place to start when looking to find any of the above printers at marked down prices.

What is the maximum printing speed of an inkjet printer?

The speed of an inkjet printer is measured by the number of pages it can print per minute (ppm). A standard inkjet printer has three levels of quality settings: draft, normal and best. The speed decreases if you want high quality outputs. Manufacturers test the speed of a printer by printing basic text at the lowest quality setting, If you plan to print at normal quality settings, the real speed is likely to be about half the speed stated by the manufacturer.

If you often print graphics with your inkjet printer, speed is an important factor. Based on your printer's system configurations, print mode, page coverage, document complexity and software, print speeds vary. In a standard inkjet printer, print speed for black text differs between 1 to 28 ppm. For color photos and graphics, speeds range from 1 to 20 ppm.

What resolution is good for quality printing?

Another area you have to concentrate on is print resolution. Printers are identified as being of good quality if they feature print resolutions in excess of 1440 dots per inch (dpi). The maximum color resolution that an inkjet printer generally has is 2400 x 1200 dpi. Some high-end models have up to 4800 x 1200 dpi. Look for a resolution of least 600 x 600 dpi for text printing and a minimum of 1200 x 600 dpi for graphics and photos. It is important to remember that the quality of output does not depend upon the resolution alone. It also depends upon the inkjet system used by the manufacturer and the colour management system.

In what way can memory capacity and memory card slots assist you?

Memory capacity should be a major factor when buying an inkjet printer because the built-in RAM cannot be expanded. You should check how much RAM is included with the printer you intend to buy. Basic models have 768 KB of RAM while the standard photo model comes with at least 8 MB of RAM for printing high-quality images.

Several inkjet printers feature memory card slots that support CompactFlash, Smart Media, Memory Stick, Secure Digital/MultiMedia Card and XD-Picture Card as well as other more advanced memory cards. Before buying a printer, confirm that it can read the memory cards that you already own.

Are you looking for a printer to share?

If you want to share a printer with other computers over a home or business network, you should check to see whether it has a wired or wireless connection. Inkjet printers connect to your computer through a USB or FireWire (IEEE 1394) port. Today, many printers use Wi-Fi technology to print wirelessly. Some models of inkjet printers are network-ready right out of the box, while others come in standalone and network-ready versions. The most expensive option is an inject printer that support a network add-on. However, this model may be more economical in the long run if you want to share the printer with other people.

What is the paper handling capacity of the printer?

The paper handling capacity should be of great concern to you if you print frequently or in bulk. In such cases, search for a printer that can hold a large quantity of paper at a time. Many inkjet printers have paper trays that take up to 250 sheets. Inkjet printers with ship paper trays can handle only 100 or 150 sheets and envelopes. Few business-oriented models feature option of additional paper trays.

Which type of cartridges is better?

Every standard inkjet printer comes with four ink colors based on the CMYK color method. Normally, the cyan, magenta and yellow inks are packaged in individual containers within a single cartridge. A separate cartridge with black ink is also included.

Today, most professionals use three types of inks for their inkjet printers. Solvent inks are low in price and used for producing vehicle graphics, billboards and banners. UV-curable inks dry quickly and are mainly used for good images. For better color and durability, dye sublimation inks are preferred.

While purchasing an inkjet printer, find out which type of ink cartridges it takes and ensure that replacement of these cartridges is easy. Also check whether you can replace individual ink cartridges or you have to replace the entire bunch at once.

Which are the inexpensive head designs for inkjet printers?

Every inkjet printer has either a fixed or a disposable head design. The fixed head design is built-in and lasts for the entire life of the printer. Most inkjet heads feature micropiezo technology for precise dot placement. With this fixed design, you do not have to replace the head every time the ink runs out. The disposable head design comes with ink cartridges. You will have to replace both the cartridges and print head once the ink is exhausted.

What are the consumables in an inkjet printer?

Many models of inkjet printers have detachable drums, ink cartridges, developer units, fusers and a few other components which need occasional replacement. Combining all these consumables into one cartridge is the best approach. Replacing an integrated cartridge is less expensive when compared to the expense of replacing individual consumables at a time. But if one component fails in an integrated cartridge, then you have to replace the cartridge itself. Also, find out the cost for per-page printing as it differs among printers. The per-page printing cost can be calculated by dividing the price by the evaluated output of a cartridge.

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Learn how to save money for your small business or home office through printer repairs

2008-01-14

What does your company do with malfunctioning printers? With the costs of printers coming down in recent years, many corporate decision makers assume it is less expensive and time consuming to simply buy brand new printers. But while printer costs have certainly come down, so have the costs of printer repair.

Given that America is a nation of do-it-yourselfers, it is surprising that many don't realize how easy it is to fix common printer problems that can save their businesses thousands of dollars. If your company is having trouble with its printers, consider repairing them yourself as your first solution.

Most printer problems are relatively easy to fix - if you have the parts that are included in a standard printer maintenance kit. For example, the printer fuser, the part that fuses the toner onto the paper, is one of the most common trouble spots. Repair "depots" (companies that provide replacement parts and services for major manufacturers like Hewlett-Packard, Lexmark, and Canon) say that most of the time, malfunctions are caused by a damaged fuser. Even on top-of-the-line printers, fusers can stop working properly long before the rest of the printer.

Yet replacing fusers is simple if you follow the directions in the maintenance kits available for your printer models. For most model, it simply requires opening the printer, releasing the fuser levers or unscrewing the connection screws, and then replacing the old part with the new. Most other printer problem can be identified and repaired with similar ease.

As companies of all sizes are learning, it's easy to turn printer repair into an opportunity to trim capital expenditures, and there are several companies that provide parts and maintenance kits for do-it-yourself printer repair. Leading companies provide maintenance kits for all major printer models and their web sites also offer free detailed instructions. These printer maintenance kits contain spare parts that have highly predictable wear characteristics, which help eliminate repeat service calls and maximize the paper feed and print quality performance.

In addition to simply providing you with the parts to fix your computer, printer repair depots also provide further means to save money. Here are some common ways to save money through printer repair:

1. By removing the broken parts and sending them to a printer repair depot instead of throwing away the whole machine, businesses are finding that they can save thousands of dollars each year.

2. Even more money can be saved by opting to have the depot's technicians replace broken parts with remanufactured (sometimes called "refurbished") parts. Corporations with staff people assigned to supporting their computers typically want the remanufactured parts because they know that the remanufactured parts need to be tested to comply with the manufacturer's standards and that the depot selling them guarantees their performance. These high volume users appreciate the substantial savings that come from using "good as new" over "brand new" parts.

3. Many depots offer core buy back programs. Companies with damaged printers send the depot the damaged parts and subassemblies for a cash incentive. The depot then repairs, tests, and resells them as remanufactured parts. Everyone benefits: the seller, the depot, and the customer.

4. And a money-saver that savvy companies know very well: frequently there are environmental compliance costs associated with throwing out computers, printers, and other electronic devices. By repairing printers instead of throwing them out, companies save on trash removal fees too.

Printer repair depots also provide in-depth online resources to help you identify what you need to fix. Many host printer error code library of documents on their web sites. These libraries give specific information on diagnosing many common problems.

Once you have identified the problems with your company's printers, you can purchase the proper parts or maintenance kits and make the repairs. A full inventory of parts plus optional overnight shipping means that you can have your printer fixed and operation regularly the next day. After you have learned how easy it is to repair your printers, you can begin to perform regular maintenance to minimize the chance of printer problems, saving even more money in the future.

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5 Laser Printer Tips

2008-01-09

Laser printers are likely the best printers that you regularly use.  They are also complicated and often misunderstood by end users when problems begin to arise.  Follow these simple tips and you will eliminate many problems and reduce frustration levels...

1.  It's probably the toner cartridge.  If you are having problems with print quality, replace the toner cartridge.  Many times, this is the cause of streaks, light spots, ghosting, and other problems.

2.  Don't blow canned air inside a dirty printer!  Loose toner can find its way onto laser lenses causing worse problems.

3.  Use quality supplies.  This includes Maintenance Kits, Paper, and Toner Cartridges.  Third party products and "refurbs" often fail faster than manufacturers original parts.

4.  Be careful printing on anything other than normal paper.  Envelopes, labels, or transparencies can instantly ruin a fuser by melting and contaminating the fuser roller.

5.  Check your connections.  A loose printer cable can present confusing symptoms.  Some printers (like HPs) will display a printer error, leading you to believe the problem is in the printer!

 

-And ALWAYS unplug a laser printer while working with it.  There are high voltage wires and very hot surfaces inside that can cause injury. 

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How To Extend the Life of Your Cartridge

2008-01-07

The only reason cartridges have a limited refill life is the resistors that control the current to each outlet jet. When a cartridge runs out of ink, the resistors can overheat and burn out. Most printers will warn you of a low cartridge before it completely runs out of ink. At the first sign of low ink, refill or top off your ink cartridge to ensure a long refillable life!

Prevent Print Head Burnout: (HP cartridge types)

Did you know that one of the most common causes of printer cartridge failure is print head burnout?

When the printer gives the command for an inkjet nozzle to print, many things happen. A certain quantity of ink is already in the firing chamber, having been pulled there by capillary, gravity or vacuum action after the last firing. The electronics package (the copper circuitry on the side of the cartridge) instructs the heating resistor to heat the ink in the chamber, causing it to expand. This very quick expansion forces ink to shoot through the print head nozzle onto the paper.

The actual structures that make up the print head are quite small. Each print head nozzle assembly consists of the nozzle plate with hole, a chamber to contain the ink, the resistor plate in the chamber and walls to guide the incoming ink to the correct position. These microscopic structures are very sensitive and delicate, and there are over 300 on the end of a typical printer cartridge.

The ink that flows through this assembly is to the print head what water is to the engine of an automobile. With no water in your car radiator, your engine will soon burn up. The same is true for your printer cartridges. The resistor that heats the ink quickly achieves a temperature of hundreds of degrees Fahrenheit! Without the cooling action of the ink, the microscopic print head substructures crack and begin to break apart, and the nozzle plate begins to warp and pull away from the cartridge.

Once print head burnout has begun, the cartridge can no longer be expected to perform as well as it did. The cartridge may leak, print with streaks of ink on the paper, or may just print poorly -- resulting in banding, poor color definition, bad coloration, missing characters and light / dark text. Printing even part of a page with no ink in the cartridge can damage your print head.

We cannot stress enough how important it is to refill your cartridges before they run dry. Print head burnout is one reason this is so important.

Late model printers may offer an "ink level gauge" letting you know when to replace your cartridge. Unfortunately these software gauges are "guesstimates" of the actual ink level in the cartridges and are based on pages printed, not on any physical measurement of ink levels.

For this reason we suggest that you top off your cartridges on a regular basis. If you know that you use a cartridge every two months, refill every month. Place a sticky note on your printer to remind you when to refill next. If you rely on your printer ink level gauge, be sure to refill before the "out of ink" indicator pops up. Note: If you have ink left over, don't worry, it'll keep!

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Enhance Your Printing Experience with Printer Tips

2008-01-03

There are numerous idiosyncrasies and aggravations that go with getting decent results from your printer. Since different printers interact differently with different machines, I can't get too specific, but here are some tips of general interest.

Find the settings that govern your printer by going through Start or Start, Settings and then choosing Printers or Printers and Faxes. Right-click the icon of the printer you want to tweak and choose Properties. In Win 9x/ME, choose the Details tab and then the Spool Settings button; in 2K/XP, choose the Advanced tab. Why do you care? Because every print job you create goes to a "spool file" on your hard disk before it goes to the printer, and by necessity a spool job is rife with compromises between speed of printing and speed of freeing your application for further use. Depending on your personal needs, you may want to tweak the settings. For a minimum amount of time your app is caught in the print job, choose "Spool print jobs so program finishes printing faster." Then choose "Start printing after last page is spooled." If you'd rather have those pages hit the printer faster, try "Print directly to the printer." If neither of these options makes anything better, restore the defaults by choosing either "Start printing after the first page is spooled" or "Start printing immediately." Note: networked or shared printers may not respond properly to these commands.

Using multiple printers? Choose your default printer by going into Start, Settings, Printers, and look for the icon of the printer you want to set as your default. Right-click it and choose Set As Default. Easy enough.

Your printer may tell you that it's experiencing an error writing to the LPT1 port. This could be caused by various things, from the simple (printer not online, no paper in the tray) to something a little more tricky. The simplest solution is to turn the printer off and back on; that may re-establish the connection. Check your printer cable to make sure both ends are securely attached. If your cable is too old or even too long, the connection may not be clean; consider buying a new, IEEE 1284-compliant bidirectional cable. Your printer driver may not be up-to-date, or may be corrupt. You could try reloading the printer software, but you may end up surfing to the printer manufacturer's Web site for more current drivers. If that's the case, you'll need to open the Printers folder (through the Start, Settings menus), right-click the printer icon, and choose Delete. Reinstall the new driver by clicking Add Printer. Still not working? Hmmmm. Check your PC's parallel port settings by right-clicking My Computer, selecting Properties, and going into Device Manager. Double-click Ports (COM and LPT), double-click Printer Port (LPT1), select Resources, and check the "Conflicting device list" for an IRQ or DMA conflict (i.e. two devices using the same IRQ or DMA setting). Disable the secondary device, or assign it to a new IRQ. You can disable a device by finding it in Device Manager, opening the Properties dialog box, selecting General, and checking "Disable in this hardware profile." If you think you're experiencing a DMA conflict, check to see whether your printer port is configured for ECP, EPP, or Standard. ECP is the highest and least compatible; Standard is slower but more compatible. Lower the configurations until you find a setting that works.

Printing different kinds of documents often forces reset of the printer settings. If you're tired of resetting your printer again and again, try setting up multiple copies of your printer in your Printer folder. Go through Start, Settings, Printers, and choose Add Printer. Use the Add Printer Wizard to create a new copy of the printer you're currently using, then choose Rename and give it a descriptive name, i.e. Two-Sided Printing or whatever suits your needs. Right-click on the newly renamed printer, choose Properties, set the options accordingly, and print OK. Do this for every configuration you normally use. Now when you want to print varying kinds of documents, all you need to do is go into Printers and choose the proper configuration.

You're aware that printers line up documents in a "queue," one after another. If you want to rearrange the documents in a printer queue (i.e. to get your report printed before the yoyo in the next office gets his), choose Start, Settings, Printers and double-click on the printer whose queue you want to manage. Click the name of the document to be printed, called the print job, and drag it to the order that you want it printed. (Unfortunately, you can't drag a job from one print queue to another, separate queue, since the documents have already been translated into RAW format for that specific printer.)

Oftentimes laser printers choke on large documents (especially those stuffed with images). That usually means that your printer doesn't have enough RAM. It's easy enough to stuff some more RAM modules into your printer, assuming that your printer has the slots. You can check your printer manufacturer's Web site for more info on this. Most laser printers use SIMMs, the same type of RAM that your PC uses, so it's possible to find an old, unused PC, take the SIMM modules out of the old chassis, and slap them into the laser printer. If you know what you're doing (and make sure to ground yourself), this can be a simple and cheap way to upgrade your printer's memory.

You don't need to open a file or its native application to print it. The easiest way to do it is to right-click its icon and choose Print. Windows handles all the details while you do something else. Or, if this comes up a lot for you, why not create a shortcut to your printer on your Desktop? Open My Computer, double-click the Printers folder, right-click and drag your printer icon out to the desktop, release the mouse button, and select "Create Shortcut(s) Here." Now, to print a file, just drag-and-drop its icon onto the printer shortcut. Again, Windows handles all the dirty work from there.

If you're networked with more than one printer, you should consider renaming the printers something descriptive or at least amusing. Click the printer icon once to select it, press F2 to activate the Rename function, and type your choice of nomenclatures. Press Enter and you've renamed that printer. Windows recommends you use the printer's factory name, but what fun is that?

Again, for those of us using more than one printer, you might want to set your computer to use a particular printer as your favorite, or default. Easy enough, just right-click the favored printer's icon and choose "Set as Default."

If you frequently print documents using different printer settings, such as black and white drafts versus color documents, you're probably getting tired of changing these settings each time you print. You can avoid this busywork by tricking Windows into thinking you have two different printers. "Install" the same printer twice, then set the Properties for each to match your most commonly used settings. From then on, the only setting change you'll have to make is selecting the printer you want to use. To "install" your printer again, select Start, Settings, Printers and click Add Printer. Follow along with the installation instructions, and when asked, opt to keep the existing driver. Also, be sure to give this "second" printer an appropriate name, such as Color Docs. When the installation is complete, you'll see two different printer icons in the Printers window. To adjust their properties, one at a time, right-click an icon, select Properties, and so on. The next time you want to print a document, select the application's Print command, select a printer in the resulting dialog box, and click OK.

Windows may be starting files that are on their way to the printer in their "raw" form. That's sometimes the default Windows setting. But raw files must be converted from their raw format that the application understood to the printer format. If you instead tell Windows to send documents as EMF -- Enhanced Metafile Format -- files, then Windows doesn't have to work at the conversion. The printer is then responsible for understanding the EMF. That can slow the printer but speed your PC. To send documents as EMF, first choose Start, Settings, Printers. Next, right-click the printer you're using. Choose Properties, Details, Spool Settings. In the Spool Data Format list, choose EMF. Easy enough.

For lots of extra info about printing, consult your Windows CD. Drill down to the \OTHER\MISC\EPTS folder, double-click EPTS.EXE, and the Enhanced Printer Troubleshooter appears. Follow along, answering the questions it asks, and with luck, you'll find a solution.

Color ink jet printers are cheaper than laser printers, but they do suck up the ink. Here's an easy way to save some ink and thusly save on pricey cartridges: turn off the color. If you're not printing color documents (and most of us print black-and-white text documents 90% of the time or more), then having your printer set to print color just wastes ink. Go through Start/Settings/Printers, click the icon for your printer and choose Properties. Poke around in the various tabs until you find out how to change the settings from color to grayscale. Leave it unless you need to print a color document, then change it back.

With inkjet printers, you always need to power the printer on and off by using its own power switch, and not another switch such as the one on your surge protector. The print head needs to be "parked" in a certain place, and that won't happen if you turn the printer off externally.

Clean the nozzles of your inkjet printer periodically. Each printer's software has you perform this task differently, but however you do it, do it at least once every few weeks, particularly if your printer sits unused for stretches of time. The printer "blows" ink through the nozzles to remove dried and gunked-up ink; it may seem wasteful, but you save in the long run by not having to replace half-used cartridges.

You should run your ink jet printer's cartridge-cleaning utility fairly regularly. Don't wait until print quality starts to degrade. Most printer software comes with self-test features under the Properties\Utilities section of their main screens; run the tests and see for yourself if the test produces less-than-excellent results. Run the cleaning utility and run the test page program again. Really badly clogged cartridges may need multiple runs of the cleaning utility. The downside: the cleaning process uses a disproportionate amount of ink, so running the utility without need wastes ink.

More inkjet caveats: Store old but usable cartridges in Ziploc bags or something else relatively airtight. Stick to using the paper recommended by your printer manufacturer (if you don't know what to use, go with the standard 20-pound copier paper); also never mix paper types in the same batch, and be careful about setting your paper guides, as many inkjet printers are rather flimsy. Keep the inside of the printer clean, using tweezers and canned air to clear out the debris and gook from the inside. Lastly, if your printer maker posts new printer drivers for your particular model, download and use them.

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