Simple and useful tips for buying a printer

Some people think that using a printer is easy but choosing a right printer that suits your need is not easy. There are so many printer manufacturers although there are only a few popular ones like Epson, Canon and HP. The following are some tips for you to consider when buying a printer.

1. Think about budget and needs when you buy the printer.
2. How often do you print? If you seldom print, you probably don't really need an expensive printer that can print in huge quantity.
3. Notice the "ppm" when you need the speed of the printer.
4. Also see the "dpi" or the printing resolution if you want to print photos. But this doesn't really matter, cause most printers nowadays can print photos quite well when you use photo paper.
5. Ask someone who is more experienced in using printer to go along with you when buying printer.
6. Avoid (or never) buy a second-hand printer. It's a matter about the print head.
7. When testing the printer, try not only the nozzle check, but try printing color boxes (especially if you are so keen in buying a second-hand printer). You may use "Print Screen of Paint color toolbox".
8. Don't forget to ask for the USB cable and printer power cable if they are not included in the box.
9. Avoid buying multi-functioned printer unless you really need it.
10. After buying the printer, remember to keep the driver CD well.

Hmm, I think these are only some tips. Perhaps you have more experience with printers. Why not share with me?

Things I learnt about printer today

Something went wrong with my printer again. This afternoon, when I was going to print with my Epson printer, I found some tips about printer. Actually it's about caution in using printer rather than printing tips.

The problem is my printer inkout lamp sometimes blink and I have to press it and try to pull out the cartridge and reinstall it. This seems to be small problem. All you have to do is to change the cartridge and everything should go well. But sometimes this is not necessary. It could be the chip on the cartridge that got loose after printing for quite a long period. Loose chip is not my problem. Mine is that the cartridge latch that keeps the cartridge firmly in the position has been broken. For this case don't press the latch too hard or you'll meet the same problem as mine. So, if the latch has been broken, of course you can't keep it firmly. What you have to do then is to stick the latch back or if you don't want, you may put thick paper to the space near the cartridge, so that the cartridge can be kept firmly in position.

The second thing is that you should pay a little caution when touch metal part of the printer especially when you touch it with wet hand or stand barefooted on the floor. Small electricity will still give you a little shock. And that's what I experienced today. Have you ever experience this?

How Inkjet printers and Laser printers work?

While working for my previous post on inkjet printers and the paper, I did a search in google search engine. I've forgotten what I typed, but as far as I remember it was about "printer parts". I came across a link to HowStuffWork website. It's also one of my favorite websites where I can learn a lot of things. Here I would like to share the following links:
To learn about Inkjet Printers click here
To learn about Laser Printers, click here
By clicking on the two links provided, I believe that you would have better understanding on printers. Compare inkjet and laser printers.

What to do when paper jammed?

Paper jam in the printer do occasionally happens. When this happen, all you have to do is to take out the jammed paper (perhaps with the help of the RESUME button after turning off and on again). After the jammed paper is taken out, sometimes if the paper is torn a bit, some small pieces left by the jammed paper will be stucked in the roller.

To remove the stucked pieces, simply put a thicker paper on the tray and press RESUME BUTTON. The paper will go inside (like ready to print. But stop at the roller). Press RESUME button again to let the paper out. By doing this you'll find the small pieces of paper stucked in the roller will be pushed out by the double RESUME actions.

If the paper jam doesn't leave any torn paper inside, you don't have to do this. Just pull the paper slowly (never use force) or use the RESUME button.

doPDF v6.1.267

doPDF is a freeware that create a virtual printer for your PC. You can then print to this virtual printer and the program will create a pdf file after you click on print button. It's a simple to use program that helps you to create pdf files from your office applications like Microsoft Word or Microsoft Excel.

Click here to download doPdf.