PRINTERS Do not buy it before you try it

Press, 15 July 1986, Page 30

PRINTERS Do not buy it before you try it

This probably should not have to be repeated, but if it goes wrong you will never forgive yourself.

Before you buy a printer make sure by actual test that it will work with your computer and the software packages that you use. Do not take anyone’s word for it. You need to see it happen in front of you. If you want to print graphs, have graphs printed out Test and test and then test again. And make sure it works with your instructions being keyed into the keyboard. Not those of the sales person. Insist that the cable that connects the printer to the computer is Included in the deal. It is not true to say you can get the right cable at any electronics shop. Believe it and you will be like Diogenes searching the world for an honest man. Insist the cable comes with the printer, or no sale. Do not buy it until you have tried it. Ignore this advice at your peril. Noise

Check the noise level. All printers, except for thermal, ink jet and laser, are noisy. Some are much noiser than others. Some are so noisy they need an acoustic hood built over them before they can be used in a normal office. This is expensive, bulky and extremely inconvenient.

Some printers have buffers, some do not, some offer them as optional extras. A buffer of some sort is highly desirable because you can tell the computer to dump the information into the buffer where it can remain while the printer works its way through the whole of the printout. Meanwhile, you have the computer back and available for work.

The bigger the buffer the better. Anything under 16K is not really much chop. Check the draft speed. This is how quickly the printer can chum out a rough copy. Normally, it does this with a bl-direc-tional movement. That is, it prints one way and then returns across the paper still printing. This speeds up the operation more than somewhat, but is rarely used in the Near Letter Quality mode.

Next, check if it is a logic-seeking printer. With a non-logic-seek-ing printer, if you have a line with no information to be printed out, the obtuse printer head still chunters along working out that each space is a blank and printing nothing in that space. This electronic form of work-to-rule is to be avoided.

If a printer has the smarts it will work out where the blank spaces are and skip to the next point where print is to appear. As a rough rule-of-thumb, a printer which is bi-directional in draft mode is also logic seeking.

There is no need for you to take anyone’s word for this. Print out a page with only a small amount of type in both draft and letter quality mode and see what the print head does. Feed

Check the type of feed. It will be either friction, or sprocket, or possibly a combination of the two. Friction, where the paper is jammed between two rollers, is bascially similar to a typewriter. It will handle single sheets well, continuous stationery fairly well, but gets into dramas if your printer needs to roll the page back and forth while imprinting its marks. Sprockets are designed for tractor feed paper — continuous stationery with bullet hole strips on each side — and, in theory at least, will ensure the acccurate placement of the. paper.

The tractor feed will either push the paper through or pull it through. If it pulls it through, you Will lose a sheet of paper every time you start a printing session, which will eventually get up your nose if you are paying for the paper. The manufacturers say this method is kinder on the paper. This seems, at best, a fairly dubious claim. 'Check that the sprockets can be moved in and out so that you can use narrow or wide paper. There are still a few printers out there where the sprockets are fixed. This results in great problems if you do not want to use that precise size of paper.

Depending on your intended use, you can normally buy a' printer in either one of two standard column widths, either 80

or 136 standard characters. There are some exceptions; for example, the Canon PW-1156A goes to 156 characters. Duplicates The last point to check is the number' of duplicates the printer can produce.

The number you will be quoted will be in addition to the top copy, but, in the case of many printers, this will be a pious hope rather than a reality.

The standard excuse given for a sadly-faded set of copies is that the machine you are looking at is a demonstration model and has had a hard life. You will, beyond peradventure, drive far more material through your printer in a few months than any demonstration machine will see in a month of Sundays. The number of acceptable copies that can be demonstrated is the number of copies you will get. No doubt about it Fonts

Almost every dot matrix, printer will offer you a selection of types of fonts available in normal, extra wide and condensed mode. Some will be loaded into the printer’s permanent memory, some you download from cartridges. Make sure your software package and your computer can deliver the goodies. Little point in knowing they are in the printer if you cannot access them. Daisy wheel Daisy wheel printers come with different names and can use a golf ball or a thimble or a daisy wheel (all look like they sound) to provide the type. Check how easy it is to change the typeface by doing it yourself. Speed in daisy wheel printers is quoted in two different ways — Shannon speed and maximum speed. Maximum speed is the time taken to fill the page up with rows of a single character, normally a capital A. This has little meaning except in comparative testing of a very limited sort

Shannon speed is the time taken to type out an average page of text. A daisy wheel printer will probably come with a sheet feeder.

Most sheet feeders are, to put it politely, temperamental. Take along a batch of you own stationery and feed it through. Some sheet feeders jam on some kinds of stationery.

Check yours out.

Make sure the software you use accesses all the facilities of the machine. Quite often, for example, you will find that your printer offers underlining and you word processing package gives you underlining, but this never gets together on the end product

The only way you will know is if you test it.

Laser printers

If the laser printer you

are looking at boasts graphics and text capability, design a page with some text and, say, a complex flow chart at the bottom.

Now ask for this page to be printed out and time it This will give you a very real idea of how slow some laser printers can be. . For example, such a page may take as long as 18 minutes or even longer. ■

It is not normal for sales executives to volunteer this fascinating morsel of information.

Take along the sort of work you typically do and test it out These are the only timings which are relevant.

You may be told that a laser printer produces "x” number of copies a minute. And so it does. But that is the number of copies "it produces of the same document once it has gone through the mill for the first time. This figure has nothing to do with real life.

What they are saying is that if a laser printer was a photocopier, this is how fast it would work. What you want to know is how fast it will print , out a single page of information the first time.

All else is but vanity.

Thermal printers

The most important fact you need to know about thermal printers is how much does the paper cost in the case of a paper thermal printer, or the ribbon in the case of a thermal ribbon printer.

It will not be cheap. I believe the peace ant quiet you get with these machines makes the extra cost well worthwhile — but you should know the costs going in, not after you have had the printer delivered. Also, Chech how wide a range ol paper is available. It may be that for your needs there is a gap in the range offered. Ink jet If you are going to use your own heated paper in an ink jet printer it is absolutely vital you test it before you buy. The absorbency of papers varies and the results vary with it Out of interest, the notepaper used by this newspaper works very well bn my machine, but the standard scrap paper on which I jot notes leaves a nasty mess when whipped through the printer.

The ideal level of absorbency has yet to be worked out. Ensure the printer works with your paper or you will have to order a special making. I believe that would probably be well worthwhile; but it’s important you make a conscious decision with all the facts in front of you.