Why have I never thought of that before (off topic)

[matt]

My printer ink has run out and I been routing printing to my wife's printer over the network.

This evening, having fought my way through the DVLA's online tax disc "experience" :evil: I was presented with my receipt for having been ripped off for another year.

The option to print was luring me, helped by the aforementioned "experience" :evil: , and a "PRINT" button on the page.

Bum, can't be bothered to switch on the wife's PC and fire up the printer - I'm sure it will be OK. BUT... DVLA are clearly suggesting that I print the receipt, just in case they cock it up. Why else would they have a bold print button. They'll be blaming me for not taking their 'advice' when it all goes wrong.

:idea: Eureka! Print the page to PDF! Yay - PDF now nestling on the desktop. Ripe for the sending as an email attachment when it all goes pear-shaped.

Just had to share my paper & ink saving moment of inspiration...

ON THE SUBJECT OF PRINTING...

We have a couple of ageing Epson Stylus 760 printers that use the 1 x Black cartridge + 3-Colour cartridge, costing somewhere in the region of £40-£50 every time we need to replace them.

We're considering an all-in-one 6 cartridge printer on the premise that it will save us money (i.e. only having to replace the spent colours rather than the whole cartridge).

Anyone any experience of making a similar conversion - do you REALLY save money or is it a weak sales pitch?

Cheers

 

[mel]

i like the idea of printing my own tax disc :twisted: :twisted:


dont try this at home :roll:

 

[9fingers]

I have been running my Epson 740 printer on third party ink for years. Don't be persuaded by the Epson blurb that anything other than their cartridges will damage your printer. It is BS
Google for companies like 'Prink' or 'Inkcycle'
Cartridges are only a few quid for 3 plus modest postage.

IMHO refill kits are a waste of time compared to 3rd party ink prices.

Bob

 

[mambo]

i have a Epson Stylus R200
takes 6 ink carts and i use the real cheap datasafe onesa set is about £3 and they are even good for photo quality
ps
ome colours do last ALOT longer than others :wink:

 

[cutting42]

Hi Matt

It does sort of work but I recently bought an Epson D88 inkjet with 1 black and 3 diff colours and boy does it eat ink :shock: :shock: :shock:

This is not good and if you frequesnt a few printer forums they are all at it. The best solution I have seen are these continuous ink systems:

Try here as I am going to get one for my printer. Sooo much cheaper.

 

[Colin C]

There was a test done cheap and more expensive one's

It worked out that the cheaper one's used more ink and would cost the same price as the printer to refill :shock:

I have an Epson C82 and use this one and I am very happy, plus I had a black one dry out.
Sent them an email about it and got a new one in the post for free and they have free postage plus on minimum order

 

[RogerS]

Laserprinters are very cheap now and a much better longterm alternative. keep the inkjet printer just for printing colour.

 

[ike]

I rate midrange and above Canon printers highly, especially the 8-colour i9000. With droplets down to 1pl, they can be very economical. I ave noticed more bronzig in photos however, using 3rd party inks.

Ike

 

[dedee]

Matt,
Discovered a neat little trick on the Mac the other night that is even simpler than print to pdf.

Simply hold down Control, Shift and 4 and a little cross appears on the screen drag that over the area of a window you want to keep and release.
Voila a .png file appears on the desktop. Attach that to a draft email on Gmail and it's archived too!

Andy

 

[Alf]

There once was a Mac user called Andy,
Who passed on a tip that was handy.
If you hit Command, Shift and Four,
Your desktop you can draw,
And for keeping a record that's dandy.

Sorry, it was going to be a simple "That's handy. Thanks, Andy" but naturally that rhyming set me off... :lol:

Cheers, Alf

 

[dedee]

Cor thanks Alf I can't remember the last time anyone sent be a poem before.

This is why I like to read a manual at my leisure (twas on the train actually) rather than using an application's help file.

The manual is OSX the Missing Manual available from all good bookshops and Amazon.

Andy

 

[RogerS]

That's a new one on me as well, Andy. Thanks for passing it on.

 

[dedee]

Makes me wonder why Billy and his windoze team have not thougt of it -

Or have they?


Andy

 

[Nick W]

Dedee, <Alt> + <Print> puts a copy of the current window in the clipboard, then you need to paste it into your favourite image processing app.

 

[chiba]

More here:

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=75459

8)

 

[RogerS]

Dedee, <Alt> + <Prnt> puts a copy of the current window in the clipboard, then you need to paste it into your favourite image processing app.

Not quite as elegant as the Mac. On the Mac you only save the part of the window that you want.

You can also simply drag the image (or any other document) down to the Mail icon in the dock and mail (automatically starts if not already running) and automatically opens a new mail message with the image already attached. Neat huh?

 

[BrianD]

To reiterate a previous posting.

One should consider how much printing one does and then evaluate the printing solution.

I have used a HP laser printer for several years.

One B&W cartridge prints approx 5000 pages (colour units approx 2500) and a new colour laserjet unit has dropped in price to less than £200. Seems a lot but......the inkjet solution variable costs add up so fast that I have found the laserjet is cost effective.

What with 3 kids and projects!!! I buy a cartridge every 6 months and it costs £20 from 3rd party supplier. So if you add it up...........even if you are given the printer free it makes no difference - the money is in the ink.
Laser cartridges do not dry up and you get fair warning before the carbon runs out.

Some basic calcs need to be applied to each individual to find the break-even point.
My 1p worth.

Cheers.

 

[Nick W]

I have tried editing the thing that says
Prnt
in my previous posting to both
Prnt Scrn
and
Print Screen
but the second word always disappears in my post. WTFH?

 

[promhandicam]

Dedee, <Alt> + <Print> puts a copy of the current window in the clipboard, then you need to paste it into your favourite image processing app.

<Ctrl> + <Prnt> does the whole desktop. I then paste into Word and crop the image to size. For sharing I use a piece of freeware called PDF995 to convert the document into a pdf file.

Steve

 

[promhandicam]

The last printer I bought was an HP 3210 all in one which although expensive I'm very happy with - quick, good photo printing, card reader, scanner is quick and 6 cartridges. It works out cheapest to buy a set of cartridges which comes also with 150 sheets of photo paper. I'm currently looking for a good supplier of black ink cartridges as it does seem to get through them quite quick but HP do a high capacity version. The main reason I went for the above however was that it had a built in network adaptor and so anyone on the network can print - it doesn't have to have a computer attached to it to work. I think that ultimately I'd like to get a cheapish laser for the b/w stuff which is the bulk of what we print and keep the inkjet for colour / photos.

Steve