Date: Fri, 16 May 1997 23:39:42 -0500 From: Chris Dillon <cdillon@tri-lakes.net> To: Stefan Esser <se@freebsd.org> Cc: freebsd-hardware@freebsd.org Subject: Re: What Printer To Get - Postscript Message-ID: <337D368E.167EB0E7@tri-lakes.net> References: <199705160644.XAA21927@superior.mooseriver.com> <337C7366.4A93ABDB@persprog.com> <19970516180317.27012@x14.mi.uni-koeln.de>
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Stefan Esser wrote: > > On May 16, Dave Alderman <dave@persprog.com> wrote: > > Josef Grosch wrote: > > > > > My HP Deskjet 500 does a very nice job doing > > > postscript. apsfilter works just fine and you can spend you money > > > other thinks like hard disks :-) > > > > > > > Does the apsfilter work at all with newer HP printers like the 85x and > > 870? The 500 is not made anymore. AFAIK, neither of these printers are > > "WinPrinters". > > I just printed a few pages on my new 870, and I was really > surprised to see how well it works with Ghostscript. The > printer advances paper by a few centimeters (well, say by > one inch :) per traversal of the printhead, if a B&W graphic > is sent, and while I did not actually measure the time it > takes to print a page, the speed feels much faster than that > of a 4 page per minute laser printer. One key to the 800 series speed is the width of the print head.. I think prints about twice as much at a time as other printers (this also means higher print quality due to less banding). > There are only three things I don't like about this printer: > > 1) The ink needs a few more seconds to dry, when the sheet > has been printed. True, but the ink itself is one of the reasons this printer has such phenomenal black output. > 2) Ejected sheets are not always correctly put into the output > tray and I'm afraid of the risk of a paper jam when printing > large files unattended, for that reason. Nothing bad has > happened, so far, but I'd rather stay near the printer ... Hmm, mine has never done anything weird. Have you made sure the removable tray is corrected seated? A customer of mine had problems you describe, and it ended up being that the tray wasn't seated "quite" right in the printer. > 3) From what I've heard, there is no documentation about high > resolution graphics commands available for any HP printer. > The printer's manual does not even tell about the graphic > compression modes supported (but you can easily find them > by trying all of them). This limits printing to 300dpi, while > the actual physical resolution (pixel size on paper) appears > to be better, even on plain photo-copier paper (I did not yet > try printing on special color inkjet paper). All I have found is a basic PCL5 command list from HP (somewhere on their web site, I have no idea where now, but they have a search engine). > Anyway, if all you need is a personal printer with good print > quality and speed, then the 870 may well be for you. Yup... but for $500 i kind of wish I looked at one of those Epson printers. Especially if I had waited about 2 months and bought one of their 1440dpi printers for $100 less. BUT, I think the main reason I bought this HP printer over any other is, well, it's from HP. ;> I've never once had any major problems with their printers, especially their lasers. Chris Dillon
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