Ask MetaFilter posts tagged with printer

How to use the Lexmark Z605 printer with Mac OSX 10.5.4

omnigut — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 13:26:36 -0800

I am using a Lexmark Z605 printer with a Mac OSX 10.5.4 laptop. When I try to print documents it doesn't give me several options (they are crossed out): color options, advanced layout, quality, or printer services. When I click on them (for example, color options) it says: "The bundle 'ColorOptions' could not be loaded because it does not contain a version for the current architecture. Contact the bundle's creator listed here for the latest version. 1.0.3 2000-2003 Lexmark International Inc." What to do? Is the "current architecture" my laptop? I have already gone to Lexmark's website and tried that. I went here and saw it only seems to go up to 10.4, not to 10.5.

Before I had to reformat my hard-drive (for free, in my warranty) I could use it. At the shop they reformatted the computer with the upgrade to 10.5, which I didn't ask for but am very happy about.

But now that I don't seem to be able to use my printer properly, what should I do? I'm not going back to 10.4. Should I go to the Apple Store and demand a new free printer?

Does the hive mind have a better solution?

I am weary of copying maps onto index cards.

moxiedoll — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 12:37:35 -0800

Which printer is the one for me? I have a compaq laptop, sometimes use a dell, and want to buy a printer. I would like the printer to be as small as possible and as inexpensive as possible. I will be using it infrequently and for small jobs. Does anyone know of a great little workhorse of a cheap printer who can be put away for weeks, then rally when called upon? That's the guy I want!

11" x 17" Color Printer Recommendations

toomuchpete — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 09:50:48 -0800

Looking for recommendations for printing color onto 11" x 17" paper. About once a month, a colleague of mine has to print about 90 8-page newsletters. They're in color, and printed to 11" x 17" paper. We currently use an HP K8600, which works fine except that the ink doesn't dry quickly enough, resulting in some ugly smears unless the newsletters are printed one at a time, which is clearly sub-optimal.

I'm looking for some recommendations for either a) recommendations on a different printer (something less than $500 would be ideal) that would do the printing in one fell-swoop or b) ideas for dealing with this smearing problem. I searched around but didn't really find anything that looked on-point with respect to the smearing problem.

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

Los Angeles Business Cards

klangklangston — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 15:46:11 -0800

LA business card printer? Anyone here have any recommendations for getting business cards printed in LA? I've been overwhelmed by the number of printers that I've found listed, and a couple that I've contacted have either not been "that kind" of printers or have been out of business (thanks, phone book!).

I am sick of babysitting creaking old printers.

By The Grace of God — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 16:31:49 -0800

I want to buy the Leaflet-o-Matic 5000 printer of awesome. I want a printer to print runs of hundreds of survey cards with addresses, etc. and leaflets for a political campaign. It should be a laser black and white, fast and reliable, with a capacious paper tray, duplex would be nice but not necessary. Network printer capability and plays nice with Macs, please. Budget of about £200.

I am in the UK if relevant. Many thanks!

Looking for cheap mac-compatible multifunction network duplex printer.

ssnickerer — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 08:40:12 -0800

Where can I find the cheapest, most reliable, multifunction network duplex printer that is mac-compatible? (Don't need fax.) I am not looking to spend much more than $200 - is that even possible? I've been doing some searching online, but the printers I find all have bad reviews or are way past my budget. We just need this for a "small home office" type setting.

Does anyone know a good printer that does NOT use ink cartridges with embedded chips?

m94402 — Fri, 23 May 2008 23:21:41 -0800

Does anyone know a good multi-function printer (print/copy/scan) that does NOT use ink cartridges with embedded chips? Most printers today use ink cartridges that have embedded chips so that you have to buy the expensive OEM cartridges.

I am tired of paying $60 a set for my Canon MP530 cartridges. I know that you can buy non-OEM ones and then transplant the chips. But it's messy and my printer fails to recognize the non-OEM cartridges frequently.

Printing a large poster on multiple small sheets of paper?

nixxon — Fri, 09 May 2008 10:23:56 -0800

I need to print a 3x4-foot poster onto multiple sheets of regular sized paper, so that I can assemble the pieces to recreate the full-sized poster on a poster-board. Is there any (preferably free) software that will do this for me? The poster is currently in a powerpoint file, but I could easily transfer it to or recreate it in another program if necessary. The poster contains mostly text and a few color graphs.

Can I set my HP printer to grayscale by default?

mooreeasyvibe — Thu, 01 May 2008 08:19:30 -0800

How can I set my HP printer to grayscale by default? I'm in a Windows network environment (a school incidently) - we are using profiles for the children's machines.

At the moment they login and a printer is picked for them in a kix file -

if setdefaultprinter("HP Colour") = 0
?"Default printer set to HP Colour"
end if
Return

Is there a way to set the printer to print in grayscale by default.

But, so that they could through the interface, change it to colour?

Does this even make sense?
Is this even possible?

Thanks
Chris

Dirty laser printer!

dance — Wed, 30 Apr 2008 11:43:02 -0800

My HP1200 Laserjet has begun producing very unsatisfactory output - the text is repeated (faded) down the page and there are black marks at regular intervals at the side of the page and at the top. I've tried looking into this via Google and on HP's website but can't find a similar description of my problem. I would love the solution to be as simple as buying a new toner cartridge - but is it? Can anyone shed any light? Thanks

Why oh Why is my wifi not printing?

jonathanstrange — Sat, 19 Apr 2008 09:15:31 -0800

Why does my printer say it isn't responding? I'm trying to set up a new wifi network, and have connected my Canon iP5300 printer to the wireless router. I have installed the Vista driver for the printer on the laptop, which of course is running Vista.

I've connected the printer to the router, it's appearing when I look at the settings of the router, and it appears on my computer and I've set it up so that it is shared, and the computer has access to it.

However, when I click on the printers settings, and go to "Maintenence" and click on the "view printer status" it shows that the printer isn't responding, and the printer won't print any test pages.

I've followed all the instructions in the manual, however that was written for XP, so I'm not sure if there are any other settings that I need to change...

All help would be GREATLY appreciated!

Can you help me narrow down the search for a photo printer?

ersatzkat — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 17:17:06 -0800

Do you love your photo printer? Do you have a printer that might not be a "photo printer", but it's great at printing photos? Tell me all about it, please? I'd like to buy a new printer - one that can print great looking photos from 4x6 up to 11x14. These photos would be photos that I have taken myself, to frame and hang at home or to give to family. I've researched so many photo printers I'm starting to go cross-eyed. Do you have one and love it? Can you tell me why? Do you have a printer that's not marketed specifically as a photo printer, but it's really good at it anyway? Budget isn't a big concern. I'd appreciate any advice!

help me find the right printer to make some stickers

krautland — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 10:00:34 -0800

help me find the right printer to make some stickers I would like to print a couple of stickers.

They're fairly simple - one color, white type, much like the stuff you see on the design police website, though all my stickers should be the same size.

I would like to give the printer an A4 or 8.5x11 illustrator file, have them print the page on adhesive paper and precut the stickers so that they're easy to peel off individually. I'm hoping to fit 16 or 24 stickers onto a page and I am fine using a template if that makes it cheaper.

The idea is to hand out a page to everyone at the office and a couple of friends, so this is probably a rather small run that should be somewhat cost-effective.

any recommendations? (UK, US... all good)

pdf printer

Armitage Shanks — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 07:41:41 -0800

Can anyone recommend somewhere in NYC that could make a frameable quality A1 print of the PDF on this page?

The search for the right perforated vinyl printer

dnthomps — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 12:53:54 -0800

If I wanted to do a lot of perforated window vinyl prints, like so, what type of printer would I be looking into purchasing? Said printer would have to print large enough to print on just about any vehicle's rear windshield. And where do the major players in this industry get their materials (vinyl, ink, anything else?)? Do you have experience with perforated vinyl printing? If so, what else should I know if I am going to get into it?

Not including the printer, what would be the cost (estimate/guess) to print a 35"x55", full color, vinyl sticker?

Any other materials about perforated vinyl printing are more than welcome.

Looking for very thin and glossy "magazine" paper

charlesroper — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 20:54:21 -0800

Where can I buy printer paper like that used in magazines? I'm printing a small catalog and cannot, for the life of me, find an online store that sells magazine printer paper. I know that the large printers use rolls of paper for magazines, but I'm just looking for 8.5x11 sheets of thin, glossy paper (just as you'd find in any magazine).

I'm sure I can go to a local printer and ask them this question, but I'd prefer to just order some online if possible.

Anyone have experience with this?

Any experiance with Faxing from within Windows... sans modem?

TrueVox — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 11:36:10 -0800

Anyone familiar with using a Fax/Printer to send a fax from Windows XP, connecting to a Fax/Scanner/Printer?? At my company we have one fax machine for all 15 of us, which would be fine. Except we're fairly spread out throughout a few different rooms. However, all of our machines are networked to each other. I realize that Windows has an inbuilt function for sending faxes, but everything it wants to do for me requires a modem (which few of our computers have). I'm thinking there MUST be some way to make our computers look to the Fax/Printer/Scanner combo we have out in the front office, but I can't for the life of me figure it out!

Any suggestions? Or, failing that, any alternative solutions? We're trying to avoid pay-per-use services such as eFax, so that's right out. We'd like to avoid buying modems for all our machines, but if that's the only way to fax from Windows (which seems strange to me), then I suppose that's what we'll end up doing.

Thanks in advance!!!

Yay, I can ask questions! Time to upgrade my printer!

doctor.dan — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 00:50:31 -0800

Howdy all! My first question on ask.MeFi so I'm all excited. My standard ink printer is starting to show its age and I think its time to upgrade (woohoo). Looking for any good suggestions. Finding a good laser isn't the hard part, the hard part is trying to fit it in with what I want: Colour laser (I'm expecting to mostly print text with an image in the text here and there, nothing too colour intensive)
Duplex built in, or at least a cheap addition
Mac OS compatible (postscript support would also be nice, but I won't lose any sleep over it being absent)
Networked (not absolutely necessary, but strongly preferred)

The most important condition though is that it needs to be cheap, I'm just a poor little student.

Lasers printer is haunted?

jeribus — Sun, 10 Feb 2008 20:25:37 -0800

Cleaning the lasers printer? I've got an old laser printer which works ok. But I have dim spots and recurring dots. Is there a way to make it happy again? (more inside) It is a Brother HL-1240 laser printer.

It was working fine for a long time with the kid's computer. And playing nice with a variety of operating systems. So it's a fine printer all around for our needs.

And cheap to boot. Being a laser. And a thrift store find.

Bit now its for lack of a better word "ghosting" with some stuff showing up all the time when he prints.

I know that the dim spots are most likely low toner. But before replacing that I want to see if the recurring dots can be done away with.

Is there a way to clean that up? I think this is a laser printer problem in general, so I'm wondering if there is something to clean somewhere in there. And help out old laser printer using folks in general.

Printer and Photographer speaking different languages..help!

lois1950 — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 22:15:25 -0800

I need to have a photo printed on a 4x10 poster: the photo I emailed was taken on a fancy digital camera but the printer says the photo file is too small. The file was 503KB and he says that if it printed at resolution, it would be 20"x8.32". He says it should be 120"x48" @ 150 pixels/inch at a 5:2 ratio.
It's being printed on a large format digital printer and I think that's the problem; since it's not CMYK offset, the file requirements are completely different and I can't translate what the printer is saying to the guy with the camera.

Any ideas about what to tell the photographer to do or do need to find someone who has an even fancier camera?? Thanks!

Growl printer Grrr Hate Blah Ick!

Ugh — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 21:33:44 -0800

Two printers, one laptop with Vista, no drivers found. On a whim, I purchased a HP printer to go with my HP laptop which has Vista (laptop is about a month old). Everything was going well in the installation until I got to the part where you connect the USB cable and turn the printer on. I immediately got the message "Windows needs to install driver software..." I clicked locate and install, but it said it could not be found. It said "insert disc that came with this printer." The disc was already in, but okay, so I took it out and put it back in. Again it could not find it and then said it would search windows. No dice. I went to the HP website, downloaded the driver thinking something was wrong with the CD, and it still said it could not find the drivers.

After talking to tech support for a couple of hours, I eventually decided I was tired of fooling with it and returned the printer. I had actually had my eye on a Canon anyway and only bought the HP printer because it was on sale.

Well, low and behold I get my Canon printer today and the exact same thing happens. Everything is fine until it asks to plug in the USB and turn on the printer, then the exact same messages I was getting before. I've uninstalled and reinstalled the software, chose custom install and only installed the drivers, downloaded the drivers off the Canon website, all to no avail.

What am I doing wrong? I've turned off every possible security setting, and the USB cable i'm using is brand new (someone had suggested that might be a problem). When googling I see other people with Vista have had similar problems, but no real solutions are given.

The printer in question is an all-in-one Printer/Scanner/Copier Canon Pixma MP610.

DIY portfolio printing - Best paper?

rog — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 14:39:54 -0800

Printer paper - I'm printing my portfolio for application to art college. Hoping to DIY so I'm looking for high quality, A3, dual-sided, matte paper for use with a Canon Pixma IX 4000 printer. I think. I need to submit my portfolio to a number of art colleges and, because it consists mostly of photos of 3D work, I thought I'd try and print it myself. A typical page would consist of some text and several photos. Some of the pages will be all photo, full bleed, some will be just text. It's kinda hard to describe exactly the look and feel I'm going for but if you have any Phaidon published books at home that should give you an idea.

I've never done this kind of dual-sided printing before and I'm worried about show-through (especially with large colour photos). I'm also concerned about keeping the page weight down below that of the typical photo paper so that the book's not too clunky. I guess there's a compromise point there somewhere. Cost is an issue but given the importance of the project I'm happy to pay extra for the good stuff.

The choice of papers out there is making my head spin a bit so if you've attempted something like this before and have any advice regarding brands, weights and finishes I'd really appreciate it.

What electrical event killed my wife's laptop and printer?

ransom — Thu, 24 Jan 2008 10:04:06 -0800

What electrical event killed my wife's laptop and printer? We connected the printer to the laptop and...fireworks! Here's what happened: she plugged her Dell into an outlet (no surge protection) on one side of the room and plugged the usb connection from our printer into her usb port (the printer was on a surge protector). Power connection at the computer sparked, popped, and smoked, the breaker was tripped, and both laptop and printer will not power up.

We're in an older home that we just moved into and i have some suspicions about the wiring but have no electrical knowledge. Can anyone help?

Help me find my next new All-in-one Printer!

SlyBevel — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 19:52:13 -0800

Help me find my next new All-in-one Printer! Here's the deal: My Brother 420CN clogs. A lot. I used to be able to
get it to clean itself over and over again to get it printing again,
but that doesn't work anymore.

I'm aware of previous questions like this, but they're not as current as I'd like and they don't have similar price restrictions and so on.

So here's what I need in my new all-in-one:

Fax (negotiable, I could live without it. But my current one has it, and I like it.)

Flatbed scanner. With an automatic document feeder is preferred but not required.

Stand-alone copying is nice, and I'd like it. But I can live without if necessary.

Built-in networking. USB is great too, but network support is a
must.

Under $150, please. (The Brother was $100 when I bought it.)

It needs to be able to eat off-brand ink without choking on it. I think that's the source of my current problems.

I'm willing to listen to recommendations for laser units, if they're only a little more expensive. Maybe I could even live with B&W only.

Please recommend a printer that you own or have lots of experience with.

I'm pretty well burned on Brother at this point, and I've
never been too fond of Lexmark. Polaroid is out of the question. HP would be good if there's an obvious solution there.

Unnecessary (but ok if included):

Media card slots

Fancy software like OCR or Acrobat

Color LCD

Bonus: Anyone know how to get my current POS Brother 420 CN printing until the new one arrives? I've already tried doing the self-cleaning dance over and over, but it's just burning ink, and it still won't print.

Need help printing to work printer from macbook

jlowen — Wed, 02 Jan 2008 13:24:55 -0800

How do I make my Macbook (leopard os x) play nice with the Ricoh Aficio 2232c printer at work? My macbook is my main work computer. After much googling, I just can not find any definitive answers and can not seem to print to the office's Ricoh Aficio 2232c.

I do have have a PC in my office that I can access if it helps.

Right now my printing process is as follows.
1. Save document to be printed as pdf.
2. VNC over to PC, access macbook harddrive via SMB sharing, find file, and print.

I am hoping there is a much easier way to accomplish this. Preferred method is just direct printing from macbook, but would also accept some kind of utility on the PC that watches a certain folder and auto prints anything dropped into it.