new printer

[Flash]

My printer died and I am looking for a new one. It needs to be able to
scan to computer in doc format, print photos in various formats, good
print/photo quality. Any suggestions or where to go for info is
appreciated.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

My printer died and I am looking for a new one. It needs to be able to
scan to computer in doc format, print photos in various formats, good
print/photo quality. Any suggestions or where to go for info is
appreciated.

See David Lipman's reply and let me also say the following:

1. All-in-one printer-scanners are very popular, but I recommend
against them. If you have a combination unit and one of those
functions dies, you have to replace both. I recommend separate units,
so if one of them dies, you only have to replace that. Having separate
units also lets you choose the ones you like best without their both
having to be the same brand.

2. Ink-jet printers are the most popular these days. That's because
they are very cheap to buy. Note the last two words in the previous
sentence, "to buy." Yes they are cheap to buy, but very expensive to
use. That's because the replacement ink-jet cartridges are very
expensive. It's like Gillette razors; they are cheap to buy, but the
blades are expensive.

So I recommend a laser printer, not an ink-jet. Yes, a color laser
printer appears to cost much more, but over the life of the printer,
when you consider the cost of buying the printer plus replacement
cartridges, the cost per page printed is considerably lower than an
ink-jet.

Another thing I don't like about ink-jet printers is that the jets
tend to easily get clogged, especially if you don't use the printer
for a few days. That means it's a nuisance trying to clean them (and
cleaning is not always successful), and you often end up throwing
always cartridges that still have ink left in them.

There are lots of good printers and lots of good scanners. I don't
know them all, so I can't give you lists of all the good ones and all
the bad ones, But I can recommend what I have and I'm very happy with:

Color Laser Printer: Samsung CLP315/XAA
Scanner: Canon LiDE 60 (Probably no longer available and a newer Canon
LiDE model would be required)

 

[Dennis]

2. Ink-jet printers are the most popular these days. That's because
they are very cheap to buy. Note the last two words in the previous
sentence, "to buy." Yes they are cheap to buy, but very expensive to
use. That's because the replacement ink-jet cartridges are very
expensive.

Canon's ink-jet cartridges seem to be reasonably priced. I bought an
Epson years ago that I ended up giving away. It ate up the ink quickly
and cartridges were 2-3 times the price of a Canon cartridge.

I think I still have an Epson LX-80 dot matrix printer laying around
somewhere and a box of new ribbons. The parallel interface is
problematic. ;-)

 

[Paul]

Canon's ink-jet cartridges seem to be reasonably priced. I bought an
Epson years ago that I ended up giving away. It ate up the ink quickly
and cartridges were 2-3 times the price of a Canon cartridge.

I think I still have an Epson LX-80 dot matrix printer laying around
somewhere and a box of new ribbons. The parallel interface is
problematic. ;-)

You can get PCI Express to Parallel Port. Would that work ?
It would probably be driver issues that would be the problem
(whatever functions as a printer driver is likely pretty old).

http://www.startech.com/Cards-Adapt...ile-Parallel-Adapter-Card-SPP-EPP-ECP~PEX1PLP

That card comes with two faceplates. You take off the low-profile
one and put on the full height one, for your regular desktop
computer. I had a little trouble getting that installed
right on the first try.

The difference is, a card like that supports all the operating
modes of a parallel port (around four of them). Whereas the
USB to parallel port adapters, drivers only exist for one specific
"printer" flavor. You need a card like the above, if you want
support for little hobbyist circuits and the like (general purpose
I/O). So if your printer has some strange I/O option, a card
like that is the best option on a modern machine. My desktop
motherboard doesn't have a parallel port, but that card
works fine as a substitute. And I got the card for less
money than the MSRP listed on the Startech site.

I think the chip on that, is an Oxsemi, and the chip actually
has a number of interfaces on it (which are not equipped in
this case). The only downside of the Oxsemi chip, is it
may be going out of production. So I wouldn't wait five years
to dash out and buy that particular card. One card is all I need,
to run my JTAG programmer cable.

Paul

 

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

So not just a printer, but an all-in-one. _If_ you have the space, I'd
second what someone said about having separates. (Because when one dies
you have to replace both, or keep something that's only half working, in
which case you're using the space anyway.) Also most all-in-ones do a
head cleaning cycle (which uses up some ink) each time you turn them on
- even if you're only doing so to scan. (Or do such a cycle periodically
if you just leave them turned on.)

Out of curiosity, which part died - the printer, the scanner, or the
lot?

In fact, you _might_ be able to get either a scanner or a printer - or
both - for free, just for the trouble of collecting it; when all-in-ones
first appeared, many people just put their separates away in the attic
or whatever, and might be glad to give them away to someone who'd use
them. Though that's been the case for long enough now that people may
have had clearouts.

(That threw me too, but see below.)And I wish they didn't, or at least didn't default to it. I don't
_think_ I've seen a scanner driver that didn't have the _capability_ to
save in one of the standard image formats, at least TIFF, but many -
especially those intended for the more professional market (use by less
computer-savvy folk) - _default_ to PDF, which their users then use.
Thus there are lots of scanned documents about - even single page - that
are in PDF, which are a right pain.

Might be referring to having OCR-capability but this would be
through a software application supplied with the all-in-one
printer.

Indeed. Such as Omnipage, pixyy (that's not quite right, but there is
one common one that ends in two ys), and others. If you have this
software installed on your computer, you should be able to use it with
any replacement scanner you buy - if you're lucky it will link into a
scanner driver, but even if not it will have the capability of importing
images (possibly in TIFF or even PDF). So don't let the presence or
absence of .doc format output affect your choice of scanner.

GR

The "print photos in various formats" is also an aspect of the software
used to do it, rather than anything particular to the printer; I find
good old (free) IrfanView does most things well. You'd (assuming you
want to print drafts at lower quality than the printer is capable of,
for reasons of speed and ink saving) need to be able to tweak those, but
that should be provided as settings in the printer _driver_ - accessible
each time you print from any software, and the default settable (should
be the same interface) from Settings | Printers. (I usually set the
default to be draft, and amend at the actual printing stage on the rare
occasions I want final quality.)

If by "print ... in various formats" you mean to include direct from
memory card, then I suppose that is something you'll have to look for,
though I don't think the extra convenience would for me compensate for
the severe limitations I'm sure it imposes over being able to do it from
the computer (card readers for PCs cost peanuts - I've seen them in
poundshops and on ebay - and your PC may have them anyway [I've known
people with laptops who didn't _know_ they had one, as it's hidden away
underneath or similar]).

If you do go for new, I'd endorse what someone said about laser: inkjets
are expensive to run and tend to clog if unused for even quite a short
time. If I ever buy another new printer to replace my Brother inkjet
(for which I get cartridges from UKDVDR), it'll probably be a laser. And
you _can_ get all-in-ones that have a laser in them. (The one I use at
work is a marvellous machine, but I suspect costs well into four figures
- it's floor-standing, and can do A3 double-sided colour, and serves as
a photocopier!)

 

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

Canon's ink-jet cartridges seem to be reasonably priced. I bought an
Epson years ago that I ended up giving away. It ate up the ink quickly
and cartridges were 2-3 times the price of a Canon cartridge.

I've been impressed with the quality/speed of some Canons (i. e. they
can produce a good quality without it taking for ever).

When comparing cartridge prices, it is indeed worth checking (not easy
to do) on their relative sizes too, or rather on how many pages they
represent (that's the bit that's hard as you can only rely on the
manufacturers, who are reluctant to give those figures anyway, and when
they do may not all use the same type of pages. Very occasionally you
find a consumer mag. has done a comparative test, but even if you trust
them, such tests are rare enough that the models of printer they examine
will have gone out of production by the time you are looking. And they
tend to miss some makes such as brother).

I think I still have an Epson LX-80 dot matrix printer laying around
somewhere and a box of new ribbons. The parallel interface is
problematic. ;-)

I suspect the USB-to-parallel interfaces around will work with most
printers.

Such old impact printers - provided you can accept the slowness, noise,
and (probably most significant these days) lack of colour - are capable
of excellent output from XP! Certainly for text.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

In message <[email protected]>, Ghostrider


Indeed. Such as Omnipage, pixyy (that's not quite right, but there is
one common one that ends in two ys),

You mean Abbyy FineReader. Although I've never used it myself (I use
OmniPage), I understand from many others whose opinions I trust that
it's the best OCR program available.

 

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

You mean Abbyy FineReader. Although I've never used it myself (I use
OmniPage), I understand from many others whose opinions I trust that
it's the best OCR program available.

That's the one. Haven't used it enough to say that, but have played with
it, and it is good - and considering it is given away with a lot of
scanners, excellent. (Omnipage good too, though a little clunky in
operation - but as with many such things, what one is used to is an
important part of things.)

Anyway, if OP still reading - don't limit your choice of scanner to one
that mentions import to .doc; you can do that with any scanner, provided
you have OCR-to-Word software installed, which you probably have from
the one that broke (if indeed it was the scanner part that broke, which
is less likely). Omnipage and Abbyy are just two examples. Proceed, on
your computer, as if you were going to do a scan-to-.doc as before; when
you get to the point where you'd actually start scanning, poke around:
ideally you'll find "configure scanner" or similar, or at worst
something like "read image".

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

That's the one. Haven't used it enough to say that, but have played with
it, and it is good - and considering it is given away with a lot of
scanners, excellent. (Omnipage good too, though a little clunky in
operation - but as with many such things, what one is used to is an
important part of things.)

I don't use OmniPage because I'm used to it, but rather because it
came with the scanner. It works well for me, but I don't need to do
OCR very often, so I'm not too interested in what might be better. If
I were buying something, I'd probably choose Abbyy FineReader.

 

[Paul]

I don't use OmniPage because I'm used to it, but rather because it
came with the scanner. It works well for me, but I don't need to do
OCR very often, so I'm not too interested in what might be better. If
I were buying something, I'd probably choose Abbyy FineReader.

I haven't tested OCR in a long time, but the sad state of OCR
years ago was, they couldn't make a single algorithm work with
high accuracy, so they would run three different code implementations
of OCR (three times the runtime), then "vote" amongst them on what the
right answer might be. Which tells you, they kinda gave up on just
writing a single approach in the first place.

The only conversion I've ever done, which was "perfect", was to take
the test page that came, printed, in the software box, scan that,
and the tool got the conversion right They could have cheated...
(Recognized their own test document, and barfed up a verbatim
conversion.)

For me, OCR requires too much proofreading later, to catch
recognition errors. If the OCR mistakes "0" for "O", you're
going to need a "bionic eye" to catch all of those. I think
that's why I'm just opposed to using it now, it can never be
"perfect". I can't walk away while it is running, and "trust"
the answer it comes up with.

Paul

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

I haven't tested OCR in a long time, but the sad state of OCR
years ago was, they couldn't make a single algorithm work with
high accuracy, so they would run three different code implementations
of OCR (three times the runtime), then "vote" amongst them on what the
right answer might be. Which tells you, they kinda gave up on just
writing a single approach in the first place.

The only conversion I've ever done, which was "perfect", was to take
the test page that came, printed, in the software box, scan that,
and the tool got the conversion right They could have cheated...
(Recognized their own test document, and barfed up a verbatim
conversion.)

For me, OCR requires too much proofreading later, to catch
recognition errors. If the OCR mistakes "0" for "O", you're
going to need a "bionic eye" to catch all of those. I think
that's why I'm just opposed to using it now, it can never be
"perfect". I can't walk away while it is running, and "trust"
the answer it comes up with.

My experience with OmniPage (only the second best OCR program, as far
as I know) has been that if the page being scanned is clean and has a
good type-face, it is close to perfect. Never 100% perfect, but I
can't imagine anything like that being 100% perfect.

If you need perfection, yes you need to proofread the results. But
proofreading is a lot faster than if you were to type the text instead
of OCRing it.

And not everyone needs perfection all the time.

 

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

In message <[email protected]>, "Ken Blake,

My experience with OmniPage (only the second best OCR program, as far
as I know) has been that if the page being scanned is clean and has a
good type-face, it is close to perfect. Never 100% perfect, but I
can't imagine anything like that being 100% perfect.

That's my experience with OCR too - not that I use it much, but I have
an interest in the subject, as I have blind friends who obviously use it
a lot. (Smartphone apps are coming on very well too.)

If you need perfection, yes you need to proofread the results. But
proofreading is a lot faster than if you were to type the text instead
of OCRing it.

For most of us mere mortals, yes. My brother taught himself to
touch-type, and says that for him it's quicker to retype. Of course,
even for touch-typists, it depends on the layout (if that matters to
you)

And not everyone needs perfection all the time.

Indeed.

It's a subject occasionally hotly debated in the genealogy sphere, too.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

For most of us mere mortals, yes. My brother taught himself to
touch-type, and says that for him it's quicker to retype.

If you (and he) say so. But it's hard for me to believe that.

 

[J. P. Gilliver (John)]

If you (and he) say so. But it's hard for me to believe that.

He (or his partner, for whom it's more likely to be being done, as he's
an archivist) needs quite high levels of accuracy. For me, I think the
same level of accuracy would still be quicker using OCR and subsequent
proofreading.
--
J. P. Gilliver. UMRA: 1960/<1985 MB++G()AL-IS-Ch++(p)Ar@T+H+Sh0!:`)DNAf

I'm not a fan of Christmas, although I support the principle of a day of
feasting and presents, but the anxiety starts in October: how many are coming?
Are they bringing grandchildren? How long will they stay? - Raymond Briggs, in
Radio Times Christmas 2012

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

If you (and he) say so. But it's hard for me to believe that.

And let me add that unless he's a typist who's so good that he *never*
makes a mistake, he need to proofread whether he OCRed it or typed it.

 

[Flash]

So not just a printer, but an all-in-one. _If_ you have the space, I'd
second what someone said about having separates. (Because when one dies
you have to replace both, or keep something that's only half working, in
which case you're using the space anyway.) Also most all-in-ones do a
head cleaning cycle (which uses up some ink) each time you turn them on
- even if you're only doing so to scan. (Or do such a cycle periodically
if you just leave them turned on.)

Out of curiosity, which part died - the printer, the scanner, or the lot?

John, there is a timing disk on a main shaft that came loose and of
course everything went down hill. I don't feel too bad, it lasted 6
years which is not too bad for products nowadays.

In fact, you _might_ be able to get either a scanner or a printer - or
both - for free, just for the trouble of collecting it; when all-in-ones
first appeared, many people just put their separates away in the attic
or whatever, and might be glad to give them away to someone who'd use
them. Though that's been the case for long enough now that people may
have had clearouts.

(That threw me too, but see below.)And I wish they didn't, or at least didn't default to it. I don't
_think_ I've seen a scanner driver that didn't have the _capability_ to
save in one of the standard image formats, at least TIFF, but many -
especially those intended for the more professional market (use by less
computer-savvy folk) - _default_ to PDF, which their users then use.
Thus there are lots of scanned documents about - even single page - that
are in PDF, which are a right pain.

Might be referring to having OCR-capability but this would be
through a software application supplied with the all-in-one
printer.

Indeed. Such as Omnipage, pixyy (that's not quite right, but there is
one common one that ends in two ys), and others. If you have this
software installed on your computer, you should be able to use it with
any replacement scanner you buy - if you're lucky it will link into a
scanner driver, but even if not it will have the capability of importing
images (possibly in TIFF or even PDF). So don't let the presence or
absence of .doc format output affect your choice of scanner.

GR

The "print photos in various formats" is also an aspect of the software
used to do it, rather than anything particular to the printer; I find
good old (free) IrfanView does most things well. You'd (assuming you
want to print drafts at lower quality than the printer is capable of,
for reasons of speed and ink saving) need to be able to tweak those, but
that should be provided as settings in the printer _driver_ - accessible
each time you print from any software, and the default settable (should
be the same interface) from Settings | Printers. (I usually set the
default to be draft, and amend at the actual printing stage on the rare
occasions I want final quality.)

If by "print ... in various formats" you mean to include direct from
memory card, then I suppose that is something you'll have to look for,
though I don't think the extra convenience would for me compensate for
the severe limitations I'm sure it imposes over being able to do it from
the computer (card readers for PCs cost peanuts - I've seen them in
poundshops and on ebay - and your PC may have them anyway [I've known
people with laptops who didn't _know_ they had one, as it's hidden away
underneath or similar]).

If you do go for new, I'd endorse what someone said about laser: inkjets
are expensive to run and tend to clog if unused for even quite a short
time. If I ever buy another new printer to replace my Brother inkjet
(for which I get cartridges from UKDVDR), it'll probably be a laser. And
you _can_ get all-in-ones that have a laser in them. (The one I use at
work is a marvellous machine, but I suspect costs well into four figures
- it's floor-standing, and can do A3 double-sided colour, and serves as
a photocopier!)

 

[Paul]

J. P. Gilliver (John) wrote:

John, there is a timing disk on a main shaft that came loose and of
course everything went down hill. I don't feel too bad, it lasted 6
years which is not too bad for products nowadays.

Have someone with a 3D printer, print you a new one

Paul

 

[RJK]

My printer died and I am looking for a new one. It needs to be able to
scan to computer in doc format, print photos in various formats, good
print/photo quality. Any suggestions or where to go for info is
appreciated.

Unless you need the photocopier convenience in the unit, (instead of a
software photocopier implementation), I'd stick to seperate units.

I have an old Epson R300 dye based inkjet printer (4 colour + black),
and an old Epson C82 pigment based inkjet printer (3 colour + black),
and seperate scanner Canon CanoScan 650U ("Lide" (led?) instead of CCFL,
never liked the ccfl based ones due to warm up time.

....anyhooo due to the ridiculous price of Epson brand cartridges, they would
both to too expensive to run using genuine Epson cartridges, as I do quite a
lot of photo printing, so a tip here is to use pattern part cartridges with
ink that conforms to ISO 9001 e.g. Pro-jet brand, which cost just a fraction
of Epson branded cartridges. Never use the really cheap pattern part ink
cartridges. Used Pro-Jet for years - saved a fortune !!!

And another tip for photographic work, you should have a good read up on
colour conversion tables, how to colour-match, how to set up ICM in your
printer driver, and using an ICM aware photo printing prog. such as Adobe
Photoshop etc. *** Colour Management

It's REALLY nice to have a photo come out of your printer that faithfully
reproduces what you;re looking at on screen, every time

http://www.normankoren.com/

*** http://www.normankoren.com/color_management.html

regards, Richard