A Fully Featured Solution for Data Export

For those who need to be able to automate the process of exporting databases with maximum speed, reliability and ease of use, FlySpeed Data Export offers the ultimate solution. The software is packed full with all the features that you need, complete with a user-friendly interface and a high level of support. One of the most versatile of such programs currently on the market, this software can access data on many different database formats including the popular mediums of MySQL, Oracle and MS SQL Server. It also supports many of the lesser known database formats as well such as Firebird and Sybase amongst others.

This data export tool also provides you with the ability to extract data from the supported database formats and export them into other common, simpler formats for easier review, distribution or printing. Data can be exported into HTML, RTF and XML formats amongst others. Data can also be exported directly to Microsoft Office programs such as Word, Excel and Access. These processes can also be automated, making it far easier and faster than doing the job manually.

All you need to do is use FlySpeed Data Export for accessing your data in any of the supported databases and the software will take over, doing the rest of the work for you. Data will be read automatically and then extracted from the tables and converted into the specified format, while preserving all important information in the process. This offers many advantages, such as making the data more accessible for reviewing, printing or presenting your data in a more standardized manner.

Many database users and developers end up paying for an IT technician to do this work for them, however, with this software, you simply do not need to. Save money and time and get reliable results quickly by having this universal data export solution at your disposal. You can get virtually instantaneous results without having to worry about issues such as human error.

An automatic task scheduler is also included in the program, meaning that the software can carry out a number of predefined tasks when you are not even present. If you need a reliable solution for automated, periodic data export, this can save you a lot of time.

Complex queries that cannot be handled with the automated task scheduler can also be dealt with by way of OLE automation which allows automatic export of data regardless of the level of complexity of the queries. The software also takes full advantage of multi-core processors so you can be sure that it will make the most out of your system.

You can find out more about the software or download a trial edition at the product website, http://www.activedbsoft.com/overview-dataexport.html . Here you can read an overview of the features and get a better idea of exactly how the program can help you. There are also various different editions of the software on offer. This way, you should be able to get exactly the solution you need to suit your individual requirements.

What Makes A Good Photo Printer

What makes a good photo printer? Do you need PictBridge? Is it really necessary to have a photo printer that will accept images from your PC? How many colours should the printer support? Which size of paper? Do you need different paper types? Everything depends on what you are going to do with your photo printer.

In this article I will specifically focus on quality elements, both in terms of mechanics and results. I carry with me an experience as a reviewer of high-end printers of over ten years. Let's start with the quality of the components.

Photo printer quality

These days, you can buy an inkjet photo printer for less than 200 Euros. Although you always get quality in relation to what you pay, most inkjet photo printers --even the cheap ones-- have a decent quality of build.

The problem with very cheap photo printers is that the manufacturer cannot make a profit from them, and therefore has to find a way to generate money through other means than directly from selling the hardware. The easiest and most obvious way to do that is to sell ink cartridges that get depleted soon. Most cheap inkjet photo printers are therefore expensive in terms of ink consumption.

Many people will replace the manufacturer's ink with third-party ink. This is a viable strategy provided you don't care much for the longevity of your prints and the replacement ink that you buy is of a decent quality. Most replacement inks of good quality are just as expensive as the manufacturer's.

Lyson in the UK sells fine quality inkjet inks that come in bulk packaging (www.lyson.com).

Some ink manufacturers will make larger ink bottles, so that the price per unit decreases. This is actually the only way to get acceptable quality for a decent price. However, a cheap inkjet photo printer is not built to support intensive printing, so if that is why you buy those large ink bottles, then be prepared to replace your photo printer every 3 months instead of every two years. If you're printing many prints, the life span of a cheap photo printer may be much less than a year.

Better quality photo printers

If you have a bit of a larger budget, there are somewhat more expensive photo printers (between 300 and 700 Euros) on the market that have much better quality components, which last longer and which are capable of much better quality prints. More importantly, these printers consume less ink.

What should you ask a vendor of such higher-quality photo printer? For starters, such a photo printer should come with built-in calibration. Calibration is a technique that makes sure the printer is put into a known state. We use that state to make sure the colours and output quality we get from the photo printer are consistently the same. This also means we can create colour profiles for the printer, and have it print without colour streaks or gaps in the output.

Another issue that you must take into account is the ink spillage that occurs because of cleaning cycles. Every inkjet photo printer, including the cheap ones (I should say especially the cheap ones) have to clean their print heads from time to time. Some brands are notorious for wasting large amounts of ink during this process.

Cleaning the print heads involves flushing the head with a small amount of ink, in order to get the print heads firing their tiny bubbles of ink correctly. Ink tends to clog inside the heads, hence the need for cleaning. Epson photo printers waste a lot of ink on this process. Up to 20% of an ink cartridge can go to waste, especially when a shallow cleaning cycle is not enough for the heads to unclog.

HP has the lowest cleaning waste in its newest top-range photo printer, the Photosmart Pro B9180. Only 1% goes to waste with every other deep cleaning cycle. I reviewed the Photosmart Pro B9180 on www.IT-Enquirer.com. I also covered this printer's capabilities in depth, as it represents a whole new generation photo printer.

With more expensive photo printers usually also comes the ability to drive them through a Raster Image Processor (RIP), which is a sophisticated printer driver that enables you to save paper and control the ink density (the amount of ink splashed onto the paper) for each colour. RIPs are usually reserved for the larger photo printers.

Output quality of photo printers

The output quality of a photo printer depends on a number of factors, but colour accuracy and the ability to fill a patch uniformly with colour must be among the determining ones. Your photo printer should be capable of printing accurate colours. Most entry-level photo printers will allow you to print your photos directly from the camera. That's fine, but if the photo wasn't perfect or near-perfect, the odds are that you will want to fine-tune the photo.

This involves downloading the photo to your PC, editing it, and then printing it through a printer driver. The crux here is the part where I said "through a driver". If you don't have a printer colour profile for the paper you are using, chances are the photo will come out in a whole different way than what you expected.

Colour management will remedy this, but that's a topic out of scope for this article. Remember that you need good colour profiles that come with the printer in order to get the most out of it. From all the manufacturers that I have reviewed photo printers from for the different magazines that I write for, only Canon and HP have excellent colour profiles. Epson's profiles are mediocre to say the least.

If you don't know what a colour profile is, Wikipedia's article on color management may clarify.

Conclusion

If you're serious about photo printing, and your budget allows, don't buy the cheapest model. It will cost you more in ink consumption and will output mediocre quality. If you have the budget and you're a serious amateur or even a semi-pro, then a high-end photo printer will be a pleasure to use. Canon and HP are both excellent choices. Although many professional photographers use large format Epson photo printers, and while their output quality is certainly good, Epson has less appeal in the lower ends of the market than the two other brands I mentioned earlier.

There are yet other brands of photo printers. However, those are all aimed at low-end consumer usage.

Deciding to Migrate from Inkjet to Laser Printing

Experience with inkjets seem to have convinced owners that laser printers may just be worth taking a second look at. Below are some general observations that you might need to know of before making that final decision whether to go laser or inkjet.

1. Inkjet printers are not as fast as laser printers. This makes the inkjet printer an unsuitable choice for volume printing.

2. Issues on faulty ink level indicators and cartridge error messages are regularly encountered in most inkjet printers.

3. Frequent printing errors have resulted in increased ink and paper consumption, which is not good for anyone’s budget.

4. For infrequent printer users, ink can easily dry up which can lead to a damaged print head, and not to mention, a wasted cartridge.

5. Ink cartridges are more prone to leaks as compared to toner cartridges.

This is not to say that inkjet printing is not a good choice. Several small businesses still prefer inkjets over laser printers primarily because of lower purchase costs.

Colored laser printers have been sitting on store shelves for sometime but the high price tag has always been a drawback. However, recent data shows that a total of 1.9 million units of colored laser printers were sold in the last year alone. As a cost-cutting measure, large organizations have opted to switch to colored laser printers to print their own fliers and brochures.

There are a few other advantages that come with laser printing, for example:

1. Some laser printer units come with a duplexing function which allows back to back printing in one swing. This is an important, time-saving feature for companies who produce brochures of their own.

2. Laser printers come with a paper drawer which makes continuous printing easy. Some models also have multiple paper trays for large printing queues.

3. Laser printers have expandable memories making them customizable to the user’s needs.

4. Laser toner cartridges produce more prints and last longer as compared to inkjet cartridges.

5. Because they are heat-bound on paper and not absorbed like ink, laser prints are of higher quality, and not prone to smudging and smearing.

Cash from Your Camera – Tips to Make Money from Calendars

Every year we look at calendars from about August. The shops start marketing them and businesses start giving away calendars soon after. We are dependent on calendars despite our electronic diaries and cell phones. There are many people who buy calendars every year so the market is huge. This means that there are huge opportunities to make cash from your camera in this market.

The great thing about making money from calendar photography is that there are two routes, the more difficult calendar publishers market and the option of self-publishing. I think that both have great possibilities and the standards are pretty much the same. The only differences are entry points which both demand serious photography and quality. So what needs to happen to get into these markets?

1. Focus on quality

As with any photography venture, if you are not producing quality then the market will determine whether you sell or not. Calendars, because of the size of the images say in comparison to postcards or greetings cards, demand high quality. In the old photo days if you were shooting on 35mm film you didn’t stand much chance as medium format was the requirement. Today, if your digital images are high quality you are in with a big chance. So keep your quality high and your compositions of a high standard.

2. When to submit to publishers

It’s important to know when to submit a portfolio of images to publishers so contact them individually in order to find their production cycles. Some work a year in advance while others start in the first few months of a new year so be aware of the right timing. Publishers are more eager to view new images during their selection process than during deadlines. If you are not sure then go to the company’s website or ask them for a submission schedule and guidelines for submitting.

3. Where to submit

With the world of the internet everything is made easier and you are able to research with ease in the comfort of your office or home. But, don’t stop there. As with postcards and greetings cards the best place to find out what is selling is at the point of sale. Because of costs involved it’s not as easy as starting a postcard collection so get into the stores and find out the details of publishers on the back of the calendars. By knowing which are good sellers you will know who to approach first.

4. Self-publishing

This is considerably more difficult than postcards or greetings cards just because there is more printing to be done so the costs increase. There are different levels of entry into this market and with the high quality printers of today you can actually start the whole process from home. Many local businesses give away calendars so find out what they want and you may be able to brand your calendars with their name and sell to local business. With the age of digital well entrenched in the printing business you will be able to find printers giving reasonable prices on low volume print runs so testing the market is nowhere near as costly as it used to be.

5. Marketing

Once you have created a quality product you need to take the time and effort to market to the retailers. Be prepared for rejection but also be wise in who you approach and where they are situated. It’s pointless finding resellers of your calendars if they are in the wrong areas. Rather target the right areas where you will experience more rejection but the ones who are prepared to sell for you will achieve a higher volume of sales.

Here’s a plan of action to get your going:

a. Do your research and find out what type of calendar subject sells.

b. Select images from your own portfolio.

c. Shoot new images in line with market trends.

d. Find a publisher or decide to self-publish.

e. Submit your images.

f. If you are self-publishing select your final images.

g. Once your calendars have been printed, market to the right retailers.

There are great possibilities with calendar publishing if you can get you work accepted by a publishing company. If you can’t then self-publishing can also work and probably will be more profitable in the long run. Perseverance is key so keep knocking at doors until they open. Happy shooting!

5 Facts About Printing Posters

There is actually so much literature about poster printing in the Internet that it is hard to separate fact from fiction. Mostly, you will see information that is sketchy at best about printing posters and at worse; they might even lead you to spend more time and money in producing them. You do not have to worry about this though, since in this article I will show you five immovable truths about printing posters that should help you on your task. Let us start with what some printing companies might want to hide from you.

1. It does not have to be expensive

That is right. Poster printing does not have to be expensive if you want it to. Color poster printing only gets expensive because printers always recommend to you expensive printing options that sometimes you do not really need. So do not be too gullible and believe all the things that printers say. Ask questions about how to eliminate cost and get discounts. You will be surprised as to how cheap poster printing can be.

2. Color is not everything

Another truth that you may not know is that colors in a poster do not necessarily make it all that great. You do not need to print full color posters every time you need to produce one. There are plenty of successful posters out there that have used only one or two colors in their prints. It is all about the message really when it comes to design, and color is only a small and welcome improvement for it.

3. Printing quality is everything

For a color poster the printing quality is basically everything to it. All your posters rely on its paper quality to look good and last long. A glossy custom poster will usually be more moisture resistant and dirt resistant due to the gloss; while a thick paper will make the poster more durable to physical damages. So focus on quality paper since this will extend your poster’s life.

4. You do not need large posters

Another important fact you must know is that large posters are not necessarily great. In fact you do not need large posters if you know how to post your posters properly. For example, you can place smaller posters in several groups in a wide area. This has the same effect of large posters, and sometimes it is even more effective since you can flood an area to a point that everybody will be forced to read the poster. So you do not need to spend on large poster printing unless it is necessary.

5. Location is crucial

What is more crucial though than the size of the poster is its location. Each poster's location is important since it determines what kind of people pass it. Place it near a school and you get more youths to see it. Place your posters near cafes and bars and you'll get an older crowd. It is also possible to place your posters near specific communities of various religion and ethnicity. These locations will have an effect of your poster impact on people and will determine if it will be successful or not in delivering its message. So do not just place your posters everywhere. Decide on the best locations that should make it succeed.

Now you know some important truths about printing posters. Use them wisely to succeed in your endeavors.

Understand the Use of Computer Printers

A computer printer is a peripheral device that is normally used to transform the soft copy of a document, a graph, or an image into hard copy of plain pages. A printer might be directly connected to a computer through which printing commands are sent. Shared printers on the network provides centralized access to all connected computers.

Computer printers have different printing speeds depending upon the type of a printer and things that are being printed. A Document with fewer amounts of data will be printed faster than a full page solid image.

Different varieties of printers:

These are some types of computer printers that are available in the market:

1. Inkjet Pinter
2. Laser Printer
3. The Plotters Printer Version
4. The Dot-matrix Printer Type
5. The very cool type of Thermal Printer

An inkjet Printer is the most common type of computer printer. It has a low purchasing cost and high printing quality. Liquid droplets are used to print documents on papers. Laser printers use LED technology to acquire the toner particles on plain paper. Laser printers are faster and more economical to purchase as compared to inkjet printers.

Understand the different modes of printers and speeds.

Printing modes of a printer are:

1. A batch of many characters
2. Bit-mapping the image
3. A vector image

These printing modes depend upon the type of a printer. Previously, printing speed was measured in "characters per second", but nowadays printing speed is measured in pages per minute (PPM) of an office document (A4 or Letter size paper).

Types and Sizes of Printer Papers:

Several kinds of paper are available in markets that are used for printing purposes. Some of the most commonly used papers are: Matte Paper, Glossy Paper, Bright White Paper, Resume Paper and Card Stock.

Glossy paper is mostly used for printing images and photos. Printer paper also comes in various sizes to meet the user's requirement. Commonly used paper sizes are A4 size, letter size and legal size.

Inkjet Printers Vs Laser Printers

For the most part, choosing a printer can be a daunting task and entails balancing price, speed, and print quality. In order to choose the right printer for you, you will have to ask yourself how much you print per month, what types of documents you will need to print, what quality print you require, whether or not you need color, and if you care more about the initial cost or cost over the printer's lifetime. The difference between inkjet printers and laser printers is day and night, but once you understand their differences and decide which type is most suitable for your needs, you are more than half-way to finding the right printer for you.

As a rule of thumb, laser printers produce crisp, speedy text documents and decent images, while inkjet printers produce top-quality, long-lasting photos and not-so-crisp text, all at an uncomfortably-slow pace.

Inkjet printers are best if printing high-quality photos are much more important that high-quality text and graphics and if speed is not an issue for you. Their major selling point is their superior color accuracy and print resolution for vivid photos, so this does add time to printing each page. They are also best if you have light printing needs and are more concerned with the cost upfront since replacing the ink cartridges can get pricey if you start to print a lot, but you can often find a good inkjet printer for under $100 or $200.

Laser printers are best if high-quality text documents are more important than high-resolution photos and that speed is essential. Laser printers major selling point is their ability to quickly print crisp documents at a very low cost per page. Color laser printers major selling point is their ability to print documents with a mix of text, graphics and photos at a fast speed, but they do run a bit more expensive because they can "do it all." Overall, laser printers and color laser printers cost much less to maintain and operate and have a lower cost over the printer's lifetime, but have a higher price-tag initially.

It's worth explaining in detail the huge difference in the cost of ownership of the two types of printers. An inkjet printer costs a lot less initially but its cost per page is much higher than a laser printer's cost per page. In fact, companies practically give away inkjet printers because the profit for most manufacturers is in the ink cartridges, or consumables as they call them. On the other hand, a laser printer costs a lot more initially, but over time its toner will cost much less per page. For example, let's say you print 5000 pages in two months. You would have to replace the inkjet's ink cartridges about 25 times compared with the two times you would have to replace the laser printer's toner cartridge. The cost of the inkjet ink cartridges would almost double the cost of the laser toner cartridges. If you print a couple hundred pages per month or a thousand pages per month, laser printers are more cost effective overall.

Conclusively, if your business' output volume is moderate to heavy, your best bet is to go with a laser printer due to the laser printer's total cost of ownership. If you print very infrequently, whether it's for personal use or for your small office, then an inkjet printer would be more cost effective.

At the end of the day, the types of documents you need to print may determine what printer, or printers, you select. If you're printing mainly photos and documents for personal use, such as directions in which you don't care about the quality, then you should get an inkjet printer. If you print a lot of text documents and are cost conscience, then a budget monochrome laser printer would be your best fit. Finally, if you print a moderate volume of text, graphics, and mixed documents, then a color laser printer would definitely best suit your needs and would be a good investment.

HP printers are great in both the inkjet printers and laser printers categories. Epson printers, Canon printers, and Kodak printers are very popular for inkjet and photo printers. Brother printers, Xerox printers, HP printers and Samsung printers are best in class for laser printers with Xerox probably the best in class for color laser printers for businesses. So figure out your printing needs and do your research and you will find the right printer for your needs at the right price.

Getting Started With Your New Printer

If you have recently bought yourself a new printer, follow the directions in the manual for setting up cables. Put the installation CD into the CD drive and follow the set up instructions.

If you are using Windows 95/98, select Start Menu, then select Printers. Now select Add Printer, select Local Printer. Choose your printer (If your printer is not listed, choose the one closest to yours and select OK).

For the Mac, select go to server, (or chooser) and then select printer. Then choose your printer. (If your printer is not listed, then select the closest one.) Then select install.
If you are using Windows XP, then the PC will prompt you for the drivers and install the relevant one from the CD itself (if the appropriate driver is not in the database already).

If you have any problems printing, first check your cable connections. If you get repeated error messages, then reboot your computer and redo the steps above.
If you would like to upgrade the driver of your currently installed printed, then follow the steps given in the next sub-topic.

Installing Printer Drivers

A printer driver is a piece of software that allows the computer to communicate with the printer. Without this software, the printer would be hopelessly lost since it does not speak the same language! Printer manufacturers often update the drivers and these they can be easily downloaded form the company’s website for free. It is a good idea to keep a check on your printer driver version and upgrade if it is too far out of date.
Here is how you can check your print driver version number:
Windows XP

1. Click the Windows Start button, choose Control Panel, and then choose ‘Printers and Faxes.’

2. Right-click your default printer and choose Properties. (Your default printer will have a checkmark within a black circle above the printer icon.)

3. Click the General tab, click the ‘Print Test Page’ button, and then click OK to print the test page.
Windows 95/98

1. Click the Windows Start button, choose Settings, and then Printers.

2. Right-click your default printer and choose Properties. (Your default printer will have a checkmark within a black circle above the printer icon.)

3. Click the General tab, click the ‘Print Test Page’ button, and then click OK to print the test page.

Look on the test page for Driver Version.

All major printer manufactures have web sites that allow you to freely download their printer drivers. To do so, you will need your printer’s manufacturer and model number. When you go to the web site, look for words such as ‘Downloads’, ‘Drivers’, ‘Software’, or ‘Support’ and shortlist your model.

How Does Your Printer Work?

Impact printers, as the very name implies means that the printing mechanism touches the paper for creating an image. Impact printers were used in early 70s and 80s. In Dot Matrix printers a series of small pins is used to strike on a ribbon coated with ink to transfer the image on the paper.

Other Impact Printers like Character printers are basically computerized typewriters. They have a series of bars or a ball with actual characters on them, which strike on the ink ribbon to transfer the characters on the paper. At a time only one character can be printed. Daisy Wheel printers use a plastic or metal wheel. These types of printers have limited usage though because they are limited to printing only characters or one type of font and not the graphics.

There are Line printers where a chain of characters or pins, print an entire line, which makes them pretty fast, but the print quality is not so good. Thermal printers are nothing but printers used in calculators and fax machines. They are inexpensive to use. Thermal printers work by pushing heated pins against special heat sensitive paper.

More efficient and advanced printers have come out now which use new Non-impact Technology.

Non-impact printers are those where the printing mechanism does not come into the contact of paper at all. This makes them quieter in operation in comparison to the impact printers.

In mid 1980s Inkjet printers were introduced. These have been the most widely used and popular printers so far. Colour printing got revolutionized after inkjet printers were invented. An Inkjet printer's head has tiny nozzles, which place extremely tiny droplets of ink on the paper to create an image. These dots are so small that even the diameter of human hair is bigger. These dots are placed precisely and can be up to the resolution of 1440 x 720 per inch. Different combinations of ink cartridges can be used for these printers.

How an Inkjet printer works

The print head in this printer scans the page horizontally back and forth and another motor assembly rolls the paper vertically in strips and thus a strip is printed at a time. Only half a second is taken to print a strip. Inkjet printers were very popular because of their ability to colour print. Most inkjets use Thermal Technology. Plain copier paper can be used in these printers unlike thermal paper used for fax machines. Heat is used to fire ink onto the paper through the print head. Some print heads can have up to 300 nozzles. Heat resistant and water based ink is used for these printers.

The latest and fastest printers are Laser Printers. They use the principal of static electricity for printing it as in photocopiers. The principle of static electricity is that it can be built on an insulated object. Oppositely charged atoms of objects (positive and negative) are attracted to each other and cling together. For example, pieces of nylon material clinging to your body, or the static you get after brushing hair. A laser printer uses this same principle to glue ink on the paper.

How Laser Printer works:

Unlike the printers before, Laser printers use toner, static electricity and heat to create an image on the paper. Toner is dry ink. It contains colour and plastic particles. The toner passes through the fuser in the computer and the resulting heat binds it to any type of paper. Printing with laser printers is fast and non-smudge and the quality is excellent because of the high resolution that it can achieve with 300 dots per inch to almost 1200 dpi at the higher end.

Basic components of a laser printer are fuser, photoreceptor drum assembly, developer roller, laser scanning unit, toner hopper, corona wire and a discharge lamp. The laser beam creates an image on the drum and wherever it hits, it changes the electrical charge like positive or negative. The drum then is rolled on the toner. Toner is picked up by charged portion of the drum and gets transferred to the paper after passing through the fuser. Fuser heats up the paper to amalgamate ink and plastic in toner to create an image. Laser printers are called "page printers" because entire page is transferred to the drum before printing. Any type of paper can be used in these printers. Laser printers popularized DTP or Desk Top Publishing for it can print any number of fonts and any graphics..

This is how the computer and printer operate to print

When we want to print something we simply press the command "Print". This information is sent to either RAM of the printer or the RAM of the computer depending upon the type of printer we have. The process of printing then starts. While the printing is going on, our computer can still perform a variety of operations. Jobs are put in a buffer or a special area in RAM or Random Access Memory and the printer pulls them off at its own pace. We can also line up our printing jobs this way. This way of simultaneously performing functions is called spooling. Our computer and the printer are thus in constant communication.

How Do InkJet Printers Work

The printers utilizing inkjet technology were first introduced in the late 1980s and since then have gained much popularity while growing in performance and dropping in price. They are the most common type of computer printers for the general consumer due to their low cost, high quality of output, capability of printing in vivid color, and ease of use. Each printer which works on inkjet technology places extremely small droplets of ink onto paper to create a text or an image. In the personal and small business computer market, inkjet printers currently predominate. Inkjets are usually inexpensive, quiet, reasonably fast, and many models can produce high quality output. Like most modern technologies, the present-day inkjet is built on the progress made by many earlier versions. Among many contributors, Epson, Hewlett-Packard and Canon can claim a substantial share of credit for the development of the modern inkjet technology.

In the worldwide consumer market, four manufacturers account for the majority of inkjet printer sales: Canon, Hewlett-Packard, Epson, and Lexmark. The typical inkjet printer usually includes inkjet printhead assembly, paper feed assembly, power supply, control circuitry and interface ports. The inkjet printhead assembly contains several components. One of them is the printhead which is the core of the inkjet printer and contains a series of nozzles that are used to spray drops of ink. Another printhead component is the inkjet cartridge or inkjet tank. Depending on the manufacturer and model of the printer, ink cartridges come in various combinations, such as separate black and color cartridges, color and black in a single cartridge or even a cartridge for each ink color. The cartridges of some inkjet printers include the print head itself. The printhead along with the inkjet cartridge/s are moved back and forth across the paper by device called a stepper motor using a special belt.

Some printers have an additional stepper motor to park the print head assembly when the printer is not in use which means that the print head assembly is restricted from accidentally moving. The print head assembly uses a stabilizer bar to ensure that movement is precise and controlled. One of the paper feed assembly components is the paper tray or/and paper feeder. Most inkjet printers have a tray that the paper is loaded into. The feeder typically snaps open at an angle on the back of the printer, allowing the paper to be placed in it. Feeders generally do not hold as much paper as a traditional paper tray. A set of rollers pull the paper in from the tray or feeder and advance the paper when the print head assembly is ready for another pass after which another step motor powers the rollers to move the paper in the exact increment needed to ensure a continuous image is printed.

While earlier printers often had an external transformer, most printers sold today use a standard power supply that is incorporated into the printer itself. A small but sophisticated amount of circuitry is built into the printer to control all the mechanical aspects of operation, as well as decode the information sent to the printer from the computer. It is connected to the computer by a cable through the interface port. The interface port can be either parallel port, USB port or SCSI port. The parallel port is still used by many printers, but most newer printers use the USB port. A few printers connect using a serial port or small computer system interface (SCSI) port. Different types of inkjet printers exist based on the method they use to deliver the droplets of ink. There are three main inkjet technologies currently used by printer manufacturers. The thermal bubble technology used by manufacturers such as Canon and Hewlett Packard is commonly referred to as bubble jet. In a thermal inkjet printer, tiny resistors create heat, and this heat vaporizes ink to create a bubble.

As the bubble expands, some of the ink is pushed out of a nozzle onto the paper. When the bubble collapses, a vacuum is created. This pulls more ink into the print head from the cartridge. A typical bubble jet print head has 300 or 600 tiny nozzles, and all of them can fire a droplet simultaneously. Thermal inkjet technology is used almost exclusively in the consumer inkjet printer market. The ink used is usually water-based, pigment-based or dye-based but the print head is produced usually at less cost than other ink jet technologies. Contrary to the bubble jet technology, the piezoelectric technology, patented by Epson, uses piezo crystals. A crystal is located at the back of the ink reservoir of each nozzle. The crystal receives a tiny electric charge that causes it to vibrate. When the crystal vibrates inward, it forces a tiny amount of ink out of the nozzle. When it vibrates out, it pulls some more ink into the reservoir to replace the ink sprayed out.

The continuous inkjet method is used commercially for marking and coding of products and packages. The first patent on the idea is from 1867, by William Thomson. The first commercial model was introduced in 1951 by Siemens. In continuous inkjet technology, a high-pressure pump directs liquid ink from a reservoir through a microscopic nozzle, creating a continuous stream of ink droplets. A piezoelectric crystal causes the stream of liquid to break into droplets at regular intervals. The ink droplets are subjected to an electrostatic field created by a charging electrode as they form. The field is varied according to the degree of drop deflection desired. This results in a controlled, variable electrostatic charge on each droplet. Charged droplets are separated by one or more uncharged "guard droplets" to minimize electrostatic repulsion between neighboring droplets. The charged droplets are then directed (deflected) to the receptor material to be printed by electrostatic deflection plates, or are allowed to continue on undeflected to a collection gutter for reuse.

Continuous inkjet is one of the oldest inkjet technologies in use and is fairly mature. One of its advantages is the very high velocity (~50 m/s) of the ink droplets, which allows the ink drops to be thrown a long distance to the target. Another advantage is freedom from nozzle clogging as the jet is always in use When printing is started, the software application sends the data to be printed to the printer driver which translates the data into a format that the printer can understand and checks to see that the printer is online and available to print. The data is sent by the driver from the computer to the printer via the connection interface. The printer receives the data from the computer. It stores a certain amount of data in a buffer. The buffer can range from 512 KB random access memory (RAM) to 16 MB RAM, depending on the printer model. Buffers are useful because they allow the computer to finish with the printing process quickly, instead of having to wait for the actual page to print. If the inkjet printer has been idle for a period of time, it will normally go through a short cleaning cycle to make sure that the print heads are clean. Once the cleaning cycle is complete, the inkjet printer is ready to begin printing. The control circuitry activates the paper feed stepper motor.

This engages the rollers, which feed a sheet of paper from the paper tray / feeder into the printer. A small trigger mechanism in the tray / feeder is depressed when there is paper in the tray or feeder. If the trigger is not depressed, the inkjet printer lights up the "Out of Paper" LED and sends an alert to the computer. Once the paper is fed into the inkjet printer and positioned at the start of the page, the print head stepper motor uses the belt to move the print head assembly across the page. The motor pauses for the merest fraction of a second each time that the print head sprays dots of ink on the page and then moves a tiny bit before stopping again. This stepping happens so fast that it seems like a continuous motion. Multiple dots are made at each stop. It sprays the CMYK (cyan / magenta / yellow / black) colors in precise amounts to make any other color imaginable. At the end of each complete pass, the paper feed stepper motor advances the paper a fraction of an inch. Depending on the inkjet printer model, the print head is reset to the beginning side of the page, or, in most cases, simply reverses direction and begins to move back across the page as it prints. This process continues until the page is printed. The time it takes to print a page can vary widely from printer to printer. It will also vary based on the complexity of the page and size of any images on the page. Once the printing is complete, the print heads are parked. The paper feed stepper motor spins the rollers to finish pushing the completed page into the output tray.

Most inkjet printers today use inkjet inks that are very fast-drying, so that you can immediately pick up the sheet without smudging it. Compared to earlier consumer-oriented printers, inkjet printers have a number of advantages. They are quieter in operation than impact dot matrix printers or daisywheel printers. They can print finer, smoother details through higher printhead resolution, and many inkjet printers with photorealistic-quality color printing are widely available. In comparison to more expensive technologies like thermal wax, dye sublimations, and laser printers, the inkjet printers have the advantage of practically no warm-up time and lower cost per page (except when compared to laser printers).

The disadvantages of the inkjet printers include flimsy print heads (prone to clogging) and expensive inkjet cartridges. This typically leads value-minded consumers to consider laser printers for medium-to-high volume printer applications. Other disadvantages include ink bleeding, where ink is carried sideways away from the desired location by the capillary effect; the result is a muddy appearance on some types of paper. Most inkjet printer manufacturers also sell special clay-treated paper designed to reduce bleeding. Because the ink used in most inkjet cartridges and ink tanks is water-soluble, care must be taken with inkjet-printed documents to avoid even the smallest drop of water, which can cause severe "blurring" or "running."

Besides the well known small inkjet printers for home and office, there is a market for professional inkjet printers; some being for page-width format printing, and most being for wide format printing. "Page-width format" means that the print width ranges from about 8.5" to 37". "Wide format" means that these are inkjet printers ranging in print width from 24" up to 15'. The application of the page-width inkjet printers is for printing high-volume business communications that have a lesser need for flashy layout and color. Particularly with the addition of variable data technologies, the page-width inkjet printers are important in billing, tagging, and individualized catalogs and newspapers. The application of most of the wide format inkjet printers is for printing advertising graphics; a minor application is printing of designs by architects or engineers.

To Repair Or Replace a Printer?

"Should I buy a new printer or fix the old one?" I don't know how many times I've heard this question, but I wish I had a nickel for each time. Of course, if they asked a salesperson, he'd have a ready answer for them... always "yes". But as a technician, I like to analyze the question a little before giving an answer. The standard equation was always that if the repair costs more than half the machine, then replace it. But as printer technology advances, and smaller printers last longer, that standard is changing.

Just to give you an example, a $1,000 laser printer might easily last 150,000 pages before ever breaking down. When it finally does need repairs, a $500 maintenance kit (including labor) is nothing to wince at. It's standard almost. And the $500 will most probably carry you through another 150,000 pages. In a case like that, if you'd replaced that printer, you would have wasted $500.

So once we get down to the dollar for dollar, the modern equation has changed, even though the standard answer from printer dealers hasn't.

Of course, the question of repair cost and printer cost isn't the only thing to consider anymore. You have to consider down time, technological advances, and a whole mess of other things. In the end, you won't get a short, simple answer... but you can make a list of pros and cons taking into account each of the following:

Small Consistent Repairs - If a machine breaks down every other month, it's probably time for an upgrade... even if the repairs are cheap. They aren't supposed to break often. If yours is, then either the parts are getting old and brittle, or the machine itself isn't made for the amount of work you're giving it. An acceptable 'break free' period is four months.

Parts - With smaller machines, parts availability is usually the deciding factor when trying to decide whether to replace or repair. Especially with inkjet printers. As a matter of fact, the odds of being able repair an inkjet machine is very slim, because inkjet parts are usually not manufactured--the machine was designed to be replaceable.

Down Time - Sometimes it's not the end of the world when a machine sits in the corner for a week waiting for parts. Sometimes it is the end of the world. If your business relies on your machine, then you need to consider a few things: 1-Is the machine reliable enough to go for long periods without breaking? 2-Is the machine a popular model, and are there parts readily available when the machine DOES break? 3-do you have anything for 'backup'? If you answered 'no' to any of these questions, you ought to think about buying a good, reliable, POPULAR machine.

Technology - Hey--it changes, and it changes fast. If you're still using something with a parallel port, then it might be time to switch over. Yes, they'll always have things to help you convert from USB to parallel, but there are other software and memory changes that might make it impossible to use old printers. If you're thinking about upgrading your computer systems in the next couple of years, you ought to upgrade your printer as well.

Supplies - It's really hard to let go of an old printer when you have a whole stack of unused toner cartridges. Especially if you can't sell them to recover some of your cost. If the printer is costing too much to repair, then you end up spending a dime to save a nickel. However, some of the 'old reliables' can be used for bulk printer or for back-up printers, so it's not always a total loss.

While these are all good things to consider when paying for a printer repair, sometimes the final decision comes down to a simple budget consideration. The most important question might simply be: Do we have enough money budgeted for a new printer? Your technician can't help you answer that, but his experience can usually help you foresee the price you'll pay if you hold on to your old machine.