Does such a print utility exist?

[Periproct]

I've been thinking........

I bought a Canon mono laser to overcome cost of constantly replacing ink
cartridges on my Canon inkjet.

Then the idea occured. If there was a utility that would allow me to print
all the black text of a document on the laser and then run the paper through
the inkjet and print only the coloured graphics I could have the best of
both worlds.

I haven't tried but I guess I could go through a document and delete all
graphics for the laser print run and then delete or change text colour to
white for the inkjet run. Could be a bit of a long job with a large doc tho.

Any thoughts on this?

BTW, I don't even have MS Office on the PC because I have an ancient word
processor that does most of what I want. So if MS Word has this facility,
then I apologise for wasting your time.

Regards, Nige

 

[pete]

I've been thinking........

I bought a Canon mono laser to overcome cost of constantly replacing ink
cartridges on my Canon inkjet.

Then the idea occured. If there was a utility that would allow me to print
all the black text of a document on the laser and then run the paper through
the inkjet and print only the coloured graphics I could have the best of
both worlds.

You have to print through the inkjet first, otherwise you'll have almighty jams.
You print the colour graphics with the inkjet, add the black text and laser
print it.
We do it all the time.

 

[Bob Niland]

Then the idea occured. If there was a utility that
would allow me to print all the black text of a
document on the laser and then run the paper through the inkjet and
print only the coloured ...

Try it with your existing printer and you'll
discover why "sep printing" isn't done this way.

It is virtually impossible to get even coarsely
acceptable re-alignment of the sheets.

Laser printers often print colors in multiple
passes, but they never lose control of the sheet
registration internally.

 

[Periproct]

Then the idea occured. If there was a utility that would allow me to
print

You have to print through the inkjet first, otherwise you'll have almighty jams.
You print the colour graphics with the inkjet, add the black text and laser
print it.
We do it all the time.

That was quick. Thanks for that. I'll have to have an experiment with Word
or maybe Open Office.

 

[PC Medic]

You have to print through the inkjet first, otherwise you'll have almighty
jams.
You print the colour graphics with the inkjet, add the black text and
laser
print it.
We do it all the time.

^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
DO NOT DO THIS !!!!

Printing to the Bubble-Jet first and then the laser printer runs the risk of
the ink on the paper damaging the heated drum/fuser of the laser printer.

I have often done as the OP suggests and never had paper jam issues on my
Bubble-Jet. If the heat of the laser printer is causing the paper to curl to
an extent it results in jams, you are using crappy paper to begin with.

 

[PC Medic]

Try it with your existing printer and you'll
discover why "sep printing" isn't done this way.

It is virtually impossible to get even coarsely
acceptable re-alignment of the sheets.

Laser printers often print colors in multiple
passes, but they never lose control of the sheet
registration internally.

I believe he is looking to add color images to a b&w text document.
If so I have done this successfully. While not the optimum choice, it worked
in a pinch.
Personally if you need to print these documents on a regular basis, I would
recommend moving to color laser. Less time and hassle and more cost
effective.

 

[Hecate]

Try it with your existing printer and you'll
discover why "sep printing" isn't done this way.

It is virtually impossible to get even coarsely
acceptable re-alignment of the sheets.

Laser printers often print colors in multiple
passes, but they never lose control of the sheet
registration internally.

True. But if the OP just means letterheads and that sort of thing, it
really isn't a problem.

 

[Periproct]

True. But if the OP just means letterheads and that sort of thing, it
really isn't a problem.

Thanks for the feedback.
I was thinking of things like PDF software manuals (I like to have a printed
copy - old fashioned maybe) where there might be coloured screenshots
amongst the text so alignment might not be such a problem.
Having typed that I've just realised I'd need software that could edit PDFs.

 

[Bob Niland]

I was thinking of things like PDF software manuals
(I like to have a printed copy - old fashioned maybe)
where there might be coloured screenshots
amongst the text so alignment might not be such a problem.

And might be, particularly if the images were CMYK and
not RGB. You might pull seps to separate out the color
and find a lot of black dots left behind in images,
dots that need to be at precise sub-pixel locations
from printer to printer. Not an issue if you just mask
entire images, of course.

My B&W laser & inkjet color don't even align well
enough to permit printing letterheads in color on the IJ
and text content on the laser. Skew, mostly.

Having typed that I've just realised I'd need
software that could edit PDFs.

If the PDF is unsecured (or you have the PWs), Adobe
Illustrator can extract and break pages up into their
components (and preserve the fonts & vectors).

Photoshop can open PDFs as well, but rasterizes the
whole page, and a high-quality rendering of a page
(e.g. 300 dpi or higher) is a largish data object.

I'd buy a duplexing color laser before investing the
effort in this gambit.

 

[Periproct]

I believe he is looking to add color images to a b&w text document.

If so I have done this successfully. While not the optimum choice, it worked
in a pinch.
Personally if you need to print these documents on a regular basis, I would
recommend moving to color laser. Less time and hassle and more cost
effective.

Yet again BT Openworld is 'losing' posts but I found yours elsewhere.

With my Canon S900 it was getting to the stage where I was scared to use it
due to the rate it used ink. People thought I was a bit odd buying a laser
for home use but it rates as one of my more worthwhile purchases.
What was a shade annoying, having spent £200 on the Brother, those pesky
people at Konica Minolta did a special offer on a colour laser which I think
was around £250. Probably +VAT.

 

[Bill 2]

You have to print through the inkjet first, otherwise you'll have almighty
jams.
You print the colour graphics with the inkjet, add the black text and
laser
print it.
We do it all the time.

I disagree. I do some printing for a newsletter. I photocopy the main body
of the newsletter, then run the sheets through an inkjet to print an
address. Even with slightly curled and wrinkly pages from the photocopier
I've never had a sheet jam.

And I would also be worried about the ink damaging the fuser or something.

 

[Arthur Entlich]

Good idea... in principle.

I not only thought about this, but have done it with some mass produced
graphics where I had to keep costs way down because they were give aways
for a school.

What I learned:

Although some Epson inkjet printers (and very likely others) have
amazingly repeatable paper loading most of the time, they sometimes feed
differently.

Laser printers are typically very sloppy with their feeding, because it
rarely matters that much.

So, basically, anything that requires anything approaching registration
of the images is hopeless. I designed the graphics for these items so
that accurate registration was not required to make the black and
colored information work together. Otherwise, it would have been 90% or
more discards.

Art

 

[Hecate]

Good idea... in principle.

I not only thought about this, but have done it with some mass produced
graphics where I had to keep costs way down because they were give aways
for a school.

What I learned:

Although some Epson inkjet printers (and very likely others) have
amazingly repeatable paper loading most of the time, they sometimes feed
differently.

Laser printers are typically very sloppy with their feeding, because it
rarely matters that much.

So, basically, anything that requires anything approaching registration
of the images is hopeless. I designed the graphics for these items so
that accurate registration was not required to make the black and
colored information work together. Otherwise, it would have been 90% or
more discards.

It does depend on the printer and driver. For example, the Samsung
laser we use has a facility for setting up pages with non-printable
areas (i.e. letterheads) and printing thorough the Samsung driver
allows for you to have coloured letterheads which the printer takes
into account when printing.

--

Hecate - The Real One
(e-mail address removed)
Fashion: Buying things you don't need, with money
you don't have, to impress people you don't like...

 

[pete]

I disagree. I do some printing for a newsletter. I photocopy the main body
of the newsletter, then run the sheets through an inkjet to print an
address. Even with slightly curled and wrinkly pages from the photocopier
I've never had a sheet jam.

And I would also be worried about the ink damaging the fuser or something.

Disagree if you want, but we have been doing it like this for years without any
problem.
The fusers do not mind, they last for 100,000+ pages anyway, our record was with
a HP6P which printed 265.000 pages before the fuser cover started shredding.
We use compatible ink and remanufactured toner cartridges, maybe that's why it
works so well. [8-

 

[Arthur Entlich]

I'm not sure we are speaking about the same type of accuracy.

Yes, you can have a laser printer via driver or via formatting in
software to not print in a certain area on the paper, such that it would
not overprint on top of a letterhead, for instance. But this is not
what I am speaking about. I am speaking of a situation where you may
wish to accurately print something in black laser toner, and then fill
in the open areas in the black outlines with colors, or something to
that effect, where the registration needs to be extremely accurate. I
have rarely seen a laser printer that accurately feeds and prints to
that extent.

If you wish to see how your printer is doing in that matter, print
something (like a text letter) on a laser printer, and then simply send
it back through and print the same letter again, and see how well the
text is registered or if they is a lot of different between the
positioning the first run through and the second or the third.


I have gone as far as sending a photographic style image through an
Epson printer 5 times to change density of a print that was too light or
I was unhappy with the color density in some areas, and had the
overprinting so accurate as to look perfect to the naked eye. I have
also had it not work and look like a double print, however, but I was
pleasantly surprised, as long as the paper guides were snug against the
paper, how accurately I could get the paper to feed..

My experiments with several black laser printers was not as successful.

Art

 

[grumpy_44134]

Corel Draw will allow color seperations when printing.