Photo-printing over network

[Mercutio]

Here's a fun little problem:

Here at work I've got a fairly substantial number of home-type photo printers mixed in with normal inkjets (e.g. HP 932, 870Csi).

As for why we don't have a networked laser printer instead, I don't know.

But... my boss wants all our classroom PCs to be able to print to either a normal printer or a photo printer.

Again, this isn't my idea. In fact, I've been pretty vocal about how stupid it is to put an inkjet printer on every desk. Not that anyone is listening to me.

Here's the problem: HP's photo-printing options don't show up in the windows printing dialog boxes when accessed over the network. Output from a 7350 doesn't look any different from output on an HP932.

Does anyone know of a way to either make my existing photoprinters work over a network, or of a photo printer that WILL work over a network?

 

[sechs]

How are these setup on your network? Are you using a print server of some type?

 

[Mercutio]

Nope, just every other PC doing SMB-type sharing.

 

[Fushigi]

Those things are pretty goofy. Like my 5Si here at work where if I don't manually install the drivers I can't duplex. Have you tried something yucky like this:

PC1: Has Photo Printer (PP).
PC2: Wants to use PP.

Connect PP to PC2, install drivers. Disconnect from PC2 and connect to PC1, install drivers, share. Edit PP settings (Ports tab) on PC2 to be network-attached or do a NET USE to connect to the printer.

 

[Mercutio]

*WAY* too much work for our instructors, much less students. They come and get me for all that icky fooling around behind the computers.

 

[sechs]

If the drivers don't do a full install to a network printer, then they don't support remote control of these options.

Installing the drivers with the printer local on each computer may work, but it's far more likely to cause barfy printing, as the driver is expecting to send direct commands, but can't.

A print server with local port emulation would likely fix it. At this point, however, it may be just as easy to get an A-B switch.

 

[Mercutio]

Installing the printers locally does not seem to help; the photo options go away when the printer isn't connected locally via USB or parallel. Switchboxes are likewise out, just because of the cost of outfitting them for so many PCs - we'd have to buy 20 or so, each capable of doing either USB or parallel. <I'd insert the eye-rolling smilie here, but I'm on permanent smilie boycott>

 

[Howell]

Did you you try printing to LPTx: and mapping the local port?

 

[Fushigi]

According to hp ( http://h10025.www1.hp.com/ewfrf/wc/...docname=bpy20239&product=72886&dlc=en&lang=en ) it should be pretty cut and dry. That is, there shouldn't be any unusual steps involved.

 

[Mercutio]

They lie. I've tried the original drivers and the most current rev.

2000 and XP don't let you capture local ports with the standard Windows network client. That's a 9xism.

 

[sechs]

Yay! Winprinters!

 

[P5-133XL]

How about a simple print manager -> Print to a local IP address. (no sharing needed)

My experiance with printing color over a printer share has been good: I've never really had any problems.

 

[Fushigi]

The mapping as Howell mentioned it would happen at the command prompt:

net use lpt1: \\servername\printername
net use /persistent:yes

We use this in 2K & XP as we have a DOS batch file that prints reports and this allows us to use network-attached printers.

 

[Mercutio]

Yay! Winprinters!

... have been around for a long time now. IIRC the DJ820 and/or 870 were both "For Windows 98" and wouldn't print from DOS. Fortunately, there is a limit to HP's evil and they dropped that idea.

Anyhoo, I misread Howell's post as I responded, but it wouldn't help anyway - the whole problem isn't that the PC's that have photo printers can't print, it's that the photoprinter-y controls don't appear to be exposed when printing through SMB (e.g. a printer mapped from \\somePC\someprintername). I get a basic print dialog with basic print dialog stuff, and not all the paper and quality adjustment crap I'm supposed to have. It's really weird. I'd ask HP about that, but as we know, that's pointless.

IP printing isn't going to work either. These are normal client machines without assigned addresses. That, and I'm pretty sure that printing to IP needs either a web server running (for web printing) or a Unixy lpd. Printing to hostname will just invoke SMB Windows network printing.

So, uh, anyone set up a workgroup photoprinter before?

 

[sechs]

I ended up getting a print sever for mine.

 

[time]

The problem is not a new one with HP printers. <sad smiley not inserted in deference to Mercutio's new fetish>

AFAIK, the problem does not exist with any Epson photo printer - only the ultra-cheapo basic models are zombies.

Why would anyone want to purge their wallet with an HP inkjet anyway?

 

[Mercutio]

time, if you'd care to look back at my 5000something-odd posts, you'll find I've never used any of those stupid yellow Emoticons. This is not a new fetish by any means. <-- No problem with the old-fashioned kind, though.

Anyway, there are no Epson printers here. Reasons cited are the slowness and loudness of the printers, along with higher cost of consumables. My boss likes inkjet printers for some godawful reason, but not Epsons (or, thankfully, Lexmarks).

The one bonus with HP inkjets is having a proper tray for paper, rather than the top-down feeding mechanism.

 

[sechs]

Convince him to buy one Xerox Phaser to replace the lot of them. Time and money saved.

 

[Mercutio]

Her. And we already have two. We don't let students use them. The consumables are too expensive and we tend to use them for huge jobs like printing out 200-page manuals and stuff.

 

[Tea]

You have a seriously twisted boss, Merc. As evidence, I present the court with the following two items.

* Exhibit A Said boss is reliably reported to dislike the only consistently trouble-free and reliable brand of inkjet printer there is, viz Epson.

* Exhibit B Said boss restricts the use of phaser printers on cost grounds, and then prints out 200 page manuals on them!

In said mitigation, let the court note hat said boss dislikes Lexmark inkjet printers, so she can't be all bad.

 

[sechs]

Have you checked this out?

http://www.freecolorprinters.com/

You used to get free black ink, but, key, that's what monochrome lasers are for.

 

[Mercutio]

Sigh.

Yup. I've even posted that link a couple times before. 90% of what we print is monochrome, and we have a couple of printers from that service (the black was only free in the sense that you get a couple free bricks for every purchase of color bricks. It isn't like they gave you as much as you want). However, in the hands of other people, particularly the sort of people who would print out brightly colored web pages and photographs, the color dye crayons would deplete quickly. They are horribly expensive by themselves, and letting students use them up wouldn't generate any extra revenue for us.

Of course, IMO, neither does letting them screw around with all those inkjets.

Also, to reply to Tea: See above. Epsons are universally loud and slow - loud is the bigger objection. It's no fun trying to talk over the racket a printer is making, and Epsons make a lot more noise than HPs. Epson ink also more expensive IIRC.

 

[Pradeep]

So your choice is between quiet HP printers where the drivers are fuXored and won't let you use them over the network, or slightly louder Epsons that have drivers that do work. Well I guess nothing is more silent than a printer that doesn't even print

I think for photo printing you can't beat the speed of a Canon, however they all use dye-based inks so fading can be a problem. Personally my Epson R800 is pretty quiet

 

[Mercutio]

Well, we already own the fuxored HPs...

 

[sechs]

It's a sunk cost. Ignore it.