All about Printing

 

 

Types of printer: Printing technologies-

http://www.hardwarezone.com.my/feature-buying-right-printer-inkjet-laser-led-and-more

Summary

Ink jet – Cheap up front costs: Cheapest around €40

Squirts drops of coloured ink on the paper to make up the image . Normally four colours:

Cyan Magenta Yellow and Black. Best to have separate cartridges.

  • •.Colour with up to photographic quality though inks can be expensive.

  • •.Can print on different kinds of media (cards, iron-on transfers)

  • •.Text can be fuzzy.

  • •.Quite slow.

  • •.Inks dry up if printer not used much.

  • •.Prints can fade.

  • •.Susceptible to water damage

  • •.Maintenance cycle uses up ink.

Inks : – consumables Vs Clones ?

https://www.stinkyinkshop.co.uk/articles/what-is-the-difference-between-original-and-compatible-cartridges

Are compatible inks suitable for me?

How much do you print?

  • •.No matter what you print we recommend using one original cartridge every 3-4 compatible sets to clean and lubricate your print heads.

  • •.Normal-Frequently: compatibles will save you a huge amount of money. They typically contain more ink than originals, at a lower price, so your costs drop considerably.

  • •.Very rarely: Your main concern is ink drying and blocking the print heads. Originals contain a chemical to prevent this, so if you print LESS than once every few months stick to originals.

Laser – more expensive to buy: Cheapest monochrome laser around 70€ ; Colour €150 upwards.

Laser beam draws image on rotating light-sensitive drum, creates an electric  charge which attracts toner powder.  Toner baked onto the paper.

  • •.Faster than inket,

  • •.Good quality text, which does not fade.

  • •.Low cost per page

  • •.No “ink” to dry up!

  • •.Colour models are available (around €250): not as good as inkjet for colour photos, and colour toner can be expensive.

  • •.Print on limited range of media

  • •.Larger and heavier than inkjet printers

  • •.Ideal for large amounts of printing

LED (Light emitting Diode) – similar to laser printer. Uses toner, and flashing LED lights to create the image. Fewer moving parts and smaller and lighter than Laser.

Toners: would you use Compatibles or clones?

https://blog.inkjetwholesale.com.au/printer-education/generic-toner-vs-genuine-toners-what-is-better/

Other features:

Networking – print from computer connected to a network.

WiFi – print from a PC or mobile device connected to the WiFi network at home. Needs an app on your phone for your particular printer and you will need to set up the printer to connect it to your WiFi network (which may be fiddly!)

All-in-One / Multifunction: includes scanner/photocopier, which works without a PC. These are the most common type of printer these days and need not be expensive. Some features which may be available are:

  • •.Print from USB – printer has a USB slot, into which you can insert a stick containing documents for printing. No need for a computer.

  • •.Print using NFC – Print from a phone via NFC wireless communication. Both phone and printer must support NFC.

  • •.Scan to USB scan a document on the multifunction scanner and save it directly to your USB pen drive as a PDF.

Printer Driver:

This is software installed in your PC , phone or tablet which enables your device to understand the information sent to it by the printer.

https://www.techopedia.com/definition/3621/printer-driver-prd

Printing Tips

Printing from Windows 10:

  • •.Each application programme (e.g. Word, Adobe Reader etc) has slightly different options for printing.

  • •.These also depend upon the printer you have installed.

  • •.If you have problems with the print “falling off” the page – Check:  Print / Properties / Paper size. Make sure it is  A4 and not “Letter ” ( which is an American size)

  • •.Some printers/programmes give you the option: Booklet or Brochure print:  Easier to print a document as a booklet rather than messing about formatting pages in columns in the word-processor.

  • •.Print to PDF. Instead of printing the chosen pages on the printer, this tells the computer to create a PDF file containing the selected pages of the document. This PDF file can be viewed by any computer or tablet irrespective of the operating system it uses.

Printing a web page….

Web pages are full of junk, icons and graphics which you may not want. Use a browser add-on to get rid of the garbage. 

e.g. in Chrome :

Print Friendly & PDFhttps://www.printfriendly.com/

Print Friendly removes ads, navigation and junk before your print. Pages are optimized for the ultimate print reading experience. Edit Before Printing :Click-to-delete any content before printing. Remove all images or individual images. Change the text size from larger to smaller. Print or Save as PDF. Generate PDFs for archiving, sharing, or saving. PDFs include clickable links, and source URL so you can continue to interact. Features:  Print Preview * Save as PDF * Email Page * Remove Images and text you don’t want * Change font size

or Printwhatyoulike https://tinyurl.com/y85d3o95

PrintWhatYouLike lets you print the good parts of any web page while skipping ads and other junk.

When it all goes wrong: If a document won’t print the first time round people tend to press “Print” again and again…..”

This results in a backlog of print jobs which pile up one behind the other.

Here’s a definition of a Print Queue

https://www.techopedia.com/definition/8966/print-queue

Here’s a short video on how to remove stuck print jobs in Windows 10 (2min 24seconds)

https://youtu.be/lgtSo3MII2E

Setting up a Wifi printer

Be aware that when you get a new WiFi printer it will not automatically connect to your home WiFi network.

The printer needs the WiFi network name (SSID) and WiFi password to do this. However:

  • Many WiFi printers have a WiFi Direct mode. In this case the printer creates it’s own WiFi network. The SSID is typically a name that starts with “DIRECT…” and if a password is required it is usually something like “123456789”. In this way you can print from a device near to the printer by connecting the device to this WiFi Direct network. You may need to switch the device back to the home network afterwards.

To connect a WiFi printer to the home network you may be given one or more of the following options.

  • Transfer the network login from the router to the printer by pressing the WPS buttons on each.

  • Connect the printer temporarily to your computer with a USB cable and transferring the network login using manufacturers setup software.

  • Connect a device using WiFi Direct as above and transfer the settings using the manufactures setup procedure.