By Dan Bouchard

“I’ve been printing to this printer for years and now all of a sudden my files won’t print.” Does this sound familiar? If so, baring a mechanical malfunction in your printer, the most probable cause for this problem is an old or corrupt print driver. Symptoms: Very slow printing, garbled text, missing elements or not printing at all. All of these can be effects of your print driver gone bad.

A print or printer driver is a small program that allows your software application to communicate with your printer. If this program is out of date or ends up getting corrupted, your once simple task of click / print, turns into one more headache to deal with in your busy day.

“But I haven’t changed anything.” This may not be completely true. The driver must be able to “talk” to A) your printer, B) your software application and C) your operating system. A small change in any of these could spell doom for your print driver. For instance, has your Windows operating system gone through an update lately? Since Microsoft issues Windows updates on a regular basis, and most people have automatic updates turned on, chances are it has. Has your application vendor issued any patches or updates? Although it would be unlikely that you would get an update to an application without knowing, it’s possible especially in Microsoft Office. Have you had a mechanic in lately to work on your printer? If so, it’s possible that he installed some new “firmware” on your printer rendering your current driver unusable. Have you installed new software of any kind on your system? This can wreak havoc on print drivers.

If your driver is corrupt, usually reinstalling the driver will be sufficient to correct the problem; however it is a good idea to make sure you have the most recent driver installed. Given the fact that you have to install it anyway, it would be a good idea to go to the printer manufacture’s web site and download the most recent driver. All printer manufacturers update their drivers on a regular basis and make them available for download. Installing a new driver is a fairly straight forward process and the website should have instructions for installation of your particular driver. Just remember to uninstall your current driver prior to installing the new one.

For something that was originally designed to be a simple tool, print drivers have evolved to be very complicated programs. The nice thing is, updates are free to download and can contain new features. Don’t fool around with old drivers. For better, faster printing, the latest driver is the best driver.

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By Dan Bouchard

Creating your drawings in color can be a real benefit when viewing your drawings on screen, or when printed with a color plotter, but it can be a real nightmare when printing on a black and white machine.

Very often we are presented with plans to print that have been designed in color. The easiest way to reproduce these would be to print them out in color. However, this is usually not a feasible option for a large quantity of plans. Additionally, most contractors would prefer to work off of black and white plans.

High speed black and white machines are just that, black and white. They use black toner not ink. When presented with a color plan to be printed in black and white, we have two options. We can either, 1. Print in true black and white, meaning every line will be printed black, or we can 2. Print in grayscale which will attempt to print the colored lines as a screened percentage of black. This is somewhat of a simplification, but for our purposes here it will do.

In number one, our software will look at the image and very simply print everything it sees as black. This means that any distinction that the draftsman was attempting to create by using colors is completely lost. The only real way to compensate for this would be to use different line weights for each color. This would at lease help distinguish between the lines that were in color.

In number two, our software will attempt to render each color as a screened percentage of black. Darker colors such as Red and Blue will have darker screens and lighter colors such as yellow and green will have lighter screens, and while we have some control over this, the results generally are not what the draftsman was looking for. I would suggest only using a dark blue or red in this case.

Many times we will receive a drawing that the draftsman says was drawn using only black. When we examine the drawing however we realize that in an attempt to create lighter lines, a gray line was used. It is important to know that gray, is a color, just like red or green or any other color. Given this, the same rules apply as above. But wait, the draftsman complains that when he prints out the check plot on his machine, it prints fine. This is true because nine times out of ten he is using a color inkjet machine for his check plot and gray is not rendered as a screen on an inkjet machine. It is a combination of red, blue and black. If you want to get a better idea of how your print will look, you should set up your printer to use ONLY black ink to print.

Unlike inkjet plotters, high speed high quality toner machines used by most reprographic shops were designed to print very fine lines, actually as fine as .001 accurately. This is a great advantage for those draftsmen who use a variety of line weights, but it can result in lines that are very hard to see for those who draw in color. The results will also be much different than those that you get from an inkjet plotter which cannot produce lines as fine.

Finally, most reprographic shops are perfectly willing to print test prints for you to work with. I usually suggest to my clients to create a sheet with all of their line weights and colors on it. Send it to us in different formats and we can print it for them so they can see exactly what each line will look like when printed. The little time it takes to do this could save hours of time and stress when the day comes that the drawings are due out.

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By Dan Bouchard

If you have ever had to make a presentation to a small group, you will appreciate some of the latest advancements in Digital Color Copy Technology.

Consider this; you’re sitting outside your potential client’s conference room waiting for your turn to make your pitch. You’re reviewing your handouts when, you look around and you notice that your presentation materials are dull and drab compared to those of your competitors. I know that you tried your best. You went to the local office supply store and bought a package of presentation folders. You then had your office assistant carefully place your company label in a strategic location on the folder and you inserted your business cards into the slots on the pocket. Next you started to make the copies on your office copier to fill the pockets and realized that you needed a service call because your copies had lines going through them. When the technician finally showed up, he explained that your machine was going to need a part, which he would have to order. He would be back on Monday. But wait, you have to make the presentation on Tuesday. So you were there till midnight Monday, but you were able to get it all done, but at what cost? There’s the cost of materials, the time you spent putting this together and are you really going to be at the top of your game Tuesday, having been up all night Monday?

What has happened here is your competitors have found out that it is easy and inexpensive to produce high quality, color presentations in small quantities.

Color copying is no longer priced out of reach. A lot of people still think that if you want something done in color, you have to order large quantities to make it worthwhile. This is no longer the case. Hi speed Digital Color copiers have come a long way in recent years and pricing has dropped significantly with this advanced technology. Color is now easy for anyone to afford.

So you say that with color you are very limited on the type of paper you can use? Well, that has changed also. Virtually every paper manufacturer has a full digital line. From gloss to matte, heavy weight to light weight, papers, card stocks, Tyvek you can let your imagination run wild.

But what’s even more exciting is the large line of specialty items that are available for Digital Color machines. Pocket folders, bumper stickers, tent cards, door hangers, business cards, raffle tickets, postcards, reply mailers, even CD shipping boxes just to name a few. And the most surprising thing is you can get any of these items in small quantities, even as low as single copies. Professional Color is no longer the sole domain of the big boys.

The next time you need to make an impression, try adding Digital Color. Not only will it make you stand out, but it can actually save you time and money.

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Signature Digital Imaging, your Document Management Experts, is proud to introduce the latest addition to our line of high end digital equipment. The Canon C9065 Pro is the latest release from Canon USA.

With advanced paper handling and multiple finishing capabilities, the imageRUNNER ADVANCE C9065 PRO system handles a wide range of jobs efficiently and cost-effectively. From saddle-stitched booklets to direct mail pieces to marketing collateral. High-quality output whether printing on coated, matte, or specialty stocks in weights from 14 lb. bond to 110 lb cover.

To schedule a demonstration, please call Signature Digital Imaging at 603.624.4025.

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