Love Your Laser Printer

Love your laser printer
Renowned for their fast page speeds and long media life, laser (a.k.a. electro photographic) printers have found an important place in small businesses, busy offices, and networks of all sizes. Today's leading laser printers support high-quality color for both everyday and photo-quality printing. Here, we'll look at ways to track the life of your consumables, minimize media jams, and achieve the best color laser printing results.



Track your consumables

Laser printers include toner cartridges, transfer belts, and other parts, known as consumables. Consumables have a limited lifetime (usually rated in pages printed) and need to be replaced at some point due to wear and tear. However, most folks only worry about replacing things when the printer goes screwy, which is usually right when the necessary item goes out of stock. To avoid getting stuck with an offline printer while waiting several weeks for the delivery boy, it's best to track the items that you're likely to need and keep them in stock.

Most laser printers keep a running tally of the pages printed over their lifetimes, called the page count. For example, the page count of a Lexmark Optra S or SC printer is found on the Menu Settings page. Press the right Menu button until you find Test Menu, then press the Select button. You should now be able to choose Print Menus. Press the Select button to print out the settings. The page count will be found under the Printer Information section.

Check your printer's manual for how to dig up the page count information. Keep track of how long your consumables can be expected to work by writing down the page count when they're installed. Then check back periodically and compare how many pages have been printed with the page rating for the part in question. If the number of pages printed is getting close to the rating for that part, then it's time to go shopping.




Avoid paper jams

The paper-handling mechanism of your laser printer can often be intricate and convoluted, making it prone to paper jams. These can cause a terrible inconvenience (especially in a busy network printing environment) and usually make you resend at least the part of the print job that was caught in the jam, if not the whole job. While most jams aren't difficult to correct, it's best to avoid them in the first place.

The paper (media) itself plays a major role in paper jams. Make sure you're using the media that is recommended for your particular printer. Paper that's too thick, too thin, specially coated, or unusually textured may easily curl or crumple and then jam the paper handler. Try a standard paper, such as 20lb. xerography-grade, and remember to fan it and orient the printable side properly (usually facing down in the paper tray).

Lack of maintenance is the other main culprit in paper jams, especially after the printer has been very busy. Dust, paper fragments, label bits, and residue from coated papers tend to build up and can eventually cause problems in paper handing. Clean the printer periodically as recommended by the manufacturer. This will remove the junk that can affect paper handling.




Print the right colors

Color matching between what your monitor displays and what your printer spits out can be difficult because the devices use different color models. When printing in color, it is often best to use the Pantone chart supplied for your particular printer and verify that the printer is in the CMYK operating mode. In most cases, you can download a suitable Pantone chart for your printer directly from the printer's manufacturer. For example, the Pantone chart for Lexmark color laser printers can be downloaded from their Web site. If your printer appears to be color blind, you may need to update your drivers for it. Since printer drivers (PC or Mac) normally take their color data from the system's video drivers, be sure to update them as well.