Re: Printer recommendations?

From: Grant Taylor (gtaylor+colhard_heffb112503_at_picante.com)
Date: 11/25/03 

Date: 25 Nov 2003 13:46:52 -0500

Mark Carroll <markc@chiark.greenend.org.uk> writes:

> I was hoping you guys could recommend a colour inkjet for me.
> Our HP 950C has started feeding paper not-very-straight and the
> CUPS drivers don't seem to get the margins right so I have to use
> align.ps and other cruft.
>
> We use it for printing business cards, address labels, letterheads,
> whatever, all of which start out as PostScript files. Or, we did, when
> it used to print straight.
>
> So, mostly I'm looking for fairly high quality colour printing,
> reliably-accurately-straight paper feeding, good CUPS support with
> accurate margins, etc., and not too expensive to buy or run.
>
> Speed and paper tray capacity don't much matter; we use our monochrome
> laser printer for most printing. We can also be flexible about
> connection type (USB or whatever).
>
> Any thoughts? (-: It's the CUPS drivers and accurate paper feed stuff
> that stop me just going out to buy whatever's cheap in Target this
> week.

"Not too expensive to buy or run" is possible, but "not too expensive
to buy AND run" (which you probably mean) is a little tricky.

The two good choices are the HPs as supported by hpijs, and the Epsons
as supported by gimp-print. For people doing photo prints, Epson wins
by a mile. For people doing the more general purpose business-type
stuff you describe, it's less clear. Most DeskJets have replacable
print heads, and several models have automagic paper type detection
(they measure reflectivity with a blue light and adjust print density
in firmware) probably make for a more robust solution.

Reasonable models of both brands feed fine. Just avoid the bottem-end
ones and that should be a nonissue.

See also the support database at http://www.linuxprinting.org/ 

-- 
Grant Taylor - gtaylor<at>picante.com - http://www.picante.com/~gtaylor/
   Linux Printing Website and HOWTO:  http://www.linuxprinting.org/

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