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10 Troubleshooting tips
Printers can be an amazing tool to aid your business, printing photo’s or just for the kid’s homework. They are often also very frustrating! Owners often complain they have considered throwing their troublesome printer under a bus or better still retiring it with the use of a 14lb sledge hammer! We feel this may however be a little drastic. ;-)
We have compiled our top ten simple tips and tricks to ease your blood pressure and lower your heart rate. With a little know-how, printer-related glitches are easy to resolve and as a bonus you can improve the speed, quality, and cost-effectiveness of your printing.
1, Make sure the printer is turned on and that a cable hasn't come loose. Ok this may seem obvious but you have no idea how many times we have been called out just to turn on a printer.
2, Turn your printer off. By this we do not just mean with the on/off button on the printer, but to disconnect the power cable from the printer and leave for 2 -3 minutes before reconnecting. This discharges any information that may be on your printer logic board. [just like a PC or your sky box]
3, Check your print queue. Go to control panel, printers and fax, select your printer and delete any pending jobs. Corrupt print jobs often build up and prevent any further printing.
4, Download the latest driver and software. All printer manufacturers ship new printers with software drivers however they may be out of date by the time you unpack and install it.
5, Check if the inks or toner needs to be replaced. Yes we know! But you would be surprised!
6, Set to draft mode. This will not only improve your print speed but also make your cartridges last longer. It does however not work if you wish to print colour.
7, When buying a new printer always check the cost of replacement ink or laser toners and ask the sales assistant how many pages the cartridges will print. This information will save you from purchasing a printer that is just too expensive to use.
8, Perform a cleaning procedure. If the print quality is poor use the printer manufacturer software to perform a cleaning procedure. You should only need to do this up to three times.
9, Change the settings if printing photo’s always change the settings to high quality and match the appropriate type of paper i.e. Gloss, Matte etc. This regulates the amount of ink used.
10, Always keep a spare set of cartridges. This may seem like an extra outlay but the eventual cost is always the same. A spare set could save you money lost due to your printer being down.
