Number 254 - July 2004

Getting To Know Your Printer - Part Two
by Ron Hirsch, Boca Bits, January 2004
This is a continuation of the article in last month's Boca Bits Some General Suggestions    Paper - Do you go into Office Depot, or the like, and buy the cheapest paper you can find which is usable in your printer? Sure, you can find some paper for under $3 a ream. But, it's generally 20# stock, and pretty grayish in color. For less than twice the price, you can get some 24# bright white paper, which will make everything printed on it look much nicer, and with much less see-through. How much paper do you use? The average person probably uses a ream or two a year. The good stuff is certainly not an expensive luxury.    Ink cartridges -if you use a lot of ink cartridges, it is worth while to shop wisely for them especially if you're using the original manufacturer's brand. There are a very large number of 3rd party ink manufacturers, offering new and remanufactured cartridges for just about every printer out there.    The Printer - Here again, how you're using your printer is a key factor. If you're printing photos, and you want the best possible results, stick with cartridges from the OEM or one of the premier alternate sources. The color output from the real cheap cartridges can be very different from what you've been getting. If you're just printing out Internet pages, or black only documents, the quality of the color is not that critical, and you may want to try out one of the low cost sources. But do remember, many of the real cheap inks could have adverse effects on the nozzles in your printer. And badly clogged nozzles could end up causing you to junk your printer, as the cost to have the printer repaired is a lot more than you might expect. Some Printer Caveats    There are a variety of things that users should be careful of, including:    1. If you are using an inkjet printer, only use paper which is specified as "inkjet": paper. If you're using a laser printer, do not use inkjet paper. Use a paper marked for laser use. There are some papers which are classified as general purpose paper, and can be used on both types of printers.    2. For inkjet printers, always turn them on and off via the printer's on/off switch. Do not leave the printer on, and switch it from an externally controlled power source. This insures that the heads are properly parked Inkjet printer heads are subject to getting their nozzles clogged, and badly clogged nozzles can be a real PITA    Speaking of nozzles, HP generally puts the inkjet nozzle assembly directly on the ink cartridge. Epson has separate nozzles in the machine. In an HP printer, if nozzles should get badly clogged, a new cartridge will resolve things. On the Epson, clogged nozzles are a common event, and can be a real problem. I have an HP 970C, and an Epson 1280. Lately I haven't been using either of them too much. The HP 970C has never had a clogged nozzle. The Epson 1280 is always clogging with non use.    To go through the nozzle cleaning procedure, a lot of ink gets used and wasted. Even though the 1280 may be a better overall printer with more capability, the nozzle problems will probably preclude my ever buying another Epson printer. How To Use Special Paper Sizes In Printing    Anyone who has tried to establish a special paper/envelope size when printing from virtually any program has probably gotten results that produced some unexpected surprises. In times past, I would set up a special paper size, and put a border and a graphics logo on it. It looked fine on the screen, but when it printed, the graphic, it was way out of place. Apparently my HP printer used the nearest "standard" size in its calculations during translating the WordPerfect file to printer command information. But of course, that messed things up pretty badly.    The reason for this is that the printer you are using, is the governing factor in what paper sizes can be handled. Even if the program you are in allows you to generate special paper sizes, it's very iffy if the printer will cooperate. The printer driver has a listing of standard sizes in its	arsenal, and it really can't handle special sizes. Even when the program you are using seems to allow you to set up special sizes, the printer generally will hiccup on them.    When you have a document to print in any program, be it MS Word, WordPerfect, Outlook Express, an Internet page, or whatever, you generally click on the FILE>PRINT menu item. There you will be presented with a choice of printers, if you have more than one installed. And, when you review the other various printer settings, one of them will be the paper size. Most users probably aren't familiar with the choices here, as they have only one printer, and the paper used is generally the standard a-size - 8.5" X 11 ". If you are doing a business envelope, that choice will be needed to insure that the envelope prints properly. But again, most users probably don't print envelopes in their printer. A Solution To The Problem    I have been using a good workaround for situations such as this, for many years, and I'd like to share it with you. The essence of the technique is to set up any special size as a standard letter or legal size, and then adjust the margins to bring you down to the actual size you are using. The only caveat is to make sure that your printer can physically handle the smaller media which you may be using. Here, you have to check the manual to find out the smallest size allowed.    As a simple example, assume you had a special piece of personal stationery that was 6" wide, and 8" high, and you wanted 0.5" margins all around. And, you were using a printer where the manual feed was centered in the middle of the paper tray feed (like an HP LJIII.)    This paper is 2.5" narrower than the a-size portrait which you'll select as your paper size. Therefore to get a 0.5" actual margin, you'll have to set a 1.25+0.5 = 1.75" margin for left and right margins. For the top margin, set it at 0.5", as that's where the paper starts feeding. Since the special paper is 3" shorter than the standard a-size, you'll have to set the bottom margin at 3.0+0.5 = 3.5".    Once this has been done WordPerfect (or whatever program you're using), and your printer will think that they're handling a standard A-size, and everything will print properly, including graphics, with the proper margins, and proper placement.    I have used this approach for many years now, for special sizes of letterheads, envelopes, and even labels. It's worked fine in every printer I used. For special envelopes, I use a landscape orientation, and then adjust the margins exactly as I did above. In my HP LJIII, the manual feed is in the center. So the procedure will be exactly as noted above. If your printer has the feed on the left or right side, the excess amount is then added to one side only, instead of being split equally as with the center feed.    When you try out this "trick", print a test run using a standard a-size page first to make sure that you've set things up properly.    I still have a good supply of old tractor feed labels on a fan fold backing, with 12 labels to each fold. I used my technique to tell WordPerfect and the printer that they're getting a legal size page with labels, and I set the side margins so that they are now within the label body. This has worked fine for years, and I use the straight through paper path, with the back flap down on the LJIII to avoid any peeling off problems.    You may not be able to fool Mother Nature, but you can fool your word processor and your printer.    This is the end of Part 2. Did you find these two articles helpful? Please send any/all comments to me at the address noted here. ronhirsch@adelnhia.net    Ron Hirsch is a long-time member of BRCS and a consistent contributing editor to this publication. He always welcomes questions and/or comments about the products he writes about.
Number 254 - July 2004