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My recently acquired HP Photosmart C6380 All-in One Printer has 5 inkjets. One is “Photo Black” and the other black. What is the difference between these two? When is Photo Black used?

HP Printers and Ink Cartridges

HP printers come in several different configurations as far as ink cartridges go. At one end of the scale, you have printers requiring just two cartridges: a black ink cartridge and a tri-color ink cartridge. In the middle are printers with four cartridges: black, cyan, yellow, and magenta. At the other end are printers like your HP PhotoSmart printer with five ink cartridges: black, cyan, yellow, magenta, and “photo black.” HP also offers extremely high-end printers with eight ink cartridges.

The Difference between Black and Photo Black Inks

Before getting into the difference between the two types of inks, it’s important to note that these two ink cartridges are not interchangeable. You can’t use one in place of the other. The ink in each of these cartridges is different. With a black ink cartridge, the ink is black whereas the ink in a Photo Black cartridge is actually gray. If your printer uses HP Vivera

Which HP Black Ink Cartridge is used for what Purpose?

HP and other manufacturers offer printers with various print cartridge setups to address different printing needs. For users who primarily print documents that are heavy on text with the occasional need for photo and color printing, a printer with a black cartridge and a tri-color cartridge is fine. A tri-color cartridge has three chambers containing cyan, yellow, and magenta. When one of those colors is empty, the entire cartridge needs to be replaced, even if the other two chambers are full. The four cartridge printers allow users to replace individual colors as needed, thus eliminating waste. For example, if you tend to use yellow ink more than the other two colors, you can replace just the yellow cartridge.

Printers that include the Photo Black cartridge are ideal for users who want exceptional photographs. Photo Black ink, which is really gray, allows for deeper blacks in the shadows and better tonal balances overall in your photographs.

What is a good printer to go with a Dell 64-bit computer using Vista? I have a C6350 that brings up an error code at closing and I have tried everything to get rid of it and it does not go away.

HP PhotoSmart C6350 Printer Updates

When you say you’ve done everything, does that mean that the printer has all of the latest device driver updates specific to the 64-bit version of Windows Vista? HP lists a printer driver update dated May 2009, version 12.0.1 on the C6350 Support Page as well as a firmware update and several critical updates

HP PhotoSmart C6350 Error Messages

HP’s C6350 Support Page also features a huge list of known error codes here. Scroll through this list to see if your particular error code is addressed. If so, click on the link for it and read HP’s official solution. If the error message is not listed, let us know the exact error message displayed. We may be able to decipher the meaning of the message or find out additional information about how to solve it.

Vista 64-bit Compatible Printers

If you decide you’d rather just invest in another printer, we can recommend a number of excellent printers. However, what’s right for you depends on how you plan on using the printer. What do you print most, text or photos? Do you want an all-in-one like you have now? Do you want a wireless connection? Do you want an inkjet or laser printer? What features are important to you? Do you need the printer to have a card reader and photo editing capabilities? Is ink consumption a concern? Will you be upgrading to Windows 7?

With so many variables, it’s tough to recommend the best printer for your system. The most important consideration is compatibility. Because you have the 64-bit version of Windows Vista and may eventually upgrade to Windows 7, you need to focus on printers that are compatible with Vista 64-bit. If the printer also is Windows 7 (64-bit) ready, that’s a plus if you anticipate upgrading operating systems.

Once you’ve narrowed down the printers that are compatible, you can then focus on the features that you want as well as the brands that offer the best value for your money. Many electronics stores allow you to print out samples from their printers on display so that you can see the print quality. Pay attention to how many pages each ink cartridge is supposed to print and find out how much replacement cartridges will cost you in the future. In addition, find out if your printer will stop printing if it runs out of one color or if you can continue using it until you’ve had a chance to replace the low ink cartridge. For example, the HP 6980 is a nice printer that works well with Windows Vista 64-bit. However, if the color cartridge is empty, you cannot print a black and white page until you’ve replaced the color cartridge.

We have a new all-in-one printer (HP Photosmart C6380). If we copy an A4 size document it prints full size yet if we scan the same document (A4) for e-mailing it does not scan a full picture. It would seem that before scanning it is necessary to change the default size to A4. Our operating system is Windows XP.

HP makes great all-in-one printers, so you made a good choice for your home or small business. There are a few things that may be causing your scanning problem, and we need to do a little bit of troubleshooting to try to fix the issue.

Cropping Feature

The automatic cropping feature may be selected and that can cause a cropping problem.  Follow these steps to check and/or correct it:

• 1. Close the scan window if it is open.
• 2. Go to the HP Director that is on your desktop. You can find this by going to All Programs, HP and then HP Director.
• 3. Click Settings and then choose Scan Settings.
• 4. Click on the Scanning tab.
• 5. Make sure there is no check mark next to Automatically Crop Image.
• 6. Click OK and try the scan again.

Print Settings

You might want to get into your computer and check your print settings. If you have options such as “Fit to Page” or “Borderless Printing” selected, this may crop part of the image in order to fulfill these printing preferences.

Mac Problems

Are you using a Mac with this printer/scanner? If so, using the automatic document feeder can cause the image to be cropped on the bottom. The first thing to try is to put the document directly on the glass and see if it changes the way the printer scans.

You may also want to make sure it is set to scan in color.

• 1. Start the HP Device Manager which is in the dock.
• 2. Click the down arrow that is located next to Information and Settings.
• 3. Choose Scan Preferences from the drop down list.
• 4. Click the arrow next to Image Type and then select color.

You can also try to change the scan resolution.

• 1. Start the HP Device Manager.
• 2. Click the arrow next to Information and Settings.
• 3. Choose Scan Preferences.
• 4. Click the arrow next to Resolution.
• 5. Select a higher resolution from the available options and then close the window.

If you are still having problems, you can try to contact HP Support. I really think that this is a setting problem and not a flaw in the printer itself.

We have an Epson LQ1050+ Printer. The printer was connected with Windows 98, but we upgraded the system and installed Windows XP with Service Pack 2. Now I can’t connect the printer. If you have any solutions, please help me?

Epson LQ 1050+ Printer and Windows XP Compatibility

The most likely situation is that you are missing the appropriate drivers for the printer to be compatible with the newer operating system. Before we talk more about drivers, the first thing you might consider is updating to the Windows XP Service Pack 3. The more up-to-date you keep your computer’s software, the more compatible it will be with other devices and applications - and there is a more recent software release than Service Pack 2. You can get the most recent software from Windows Updates and you might also consider setting Windows Updates to run automatically to keep up with the latest releases.

About External Device Drivers

Drivers are small programs that allow your computer to communicate properly with external devices like printers. Without the right drivers for your operating system the computer isn’t able to recognize or talk to the printer. Unfortunately, due to the age of your Epson printer, the company hasn’t issued any drivers for Windows systems later than Windows 98 and there haven’t been any new releases since 2003.

Replace your Printer, Reinstall Windows 98, or Live without a Printer

You basically have three options. Depending on how important the printer is to you - you can keep Windows XP, which will really improve the functioning of your computer over Windows 98 and replace the printer with a newer model. Or, you can uninstall Windows XP and reinstall Windows 98 so that you can continue to use your printer. This option will work if the printer is vital, but is obviously not the best choice since the software is so outdated. Your third option is to keep XP and not worry about the printer right now, if you aren’t very reliant on it.

In the long run it makes the most sense to upgrade your printer, although now might not be the time when you want to invest in a new device. In any case, as you upgrade and update one component of your computer system you will have to do the same to others to maintain compatibility. Good luck!

I am Unable to Print from my Laptop

Printing from a laptop isn’t much different from printing from a desktop. The main difference is that the laptop is frequently set up for using multiple networks and printers. For example, if you use the laptop at work and at home, it would be set up to use the work network and printers as well as your home network and printer. In any case, getting printers to cooperate with computers can be a challenge. Below are a few common troubleshooting steps that you can try.

Check the Installed Printers

First, let’s make sure that the printer that you want to use is installed on your laptop. Go to the Control Panel and click the Printers icon. You will see a list of installed printers. Is the printer you are trying to use listed? If not, you will need to install it. If it is, is the printer you want to use the default printer? To make a printer the default printer, right-click its icon and choose Set as Default Printer.

Install New Printer Drivers

If you are using a shared printer, such as one that is attached to the network or to another computer, you may need to install printer drivers on your computer. Right-click the printer icon and choose Properties. Click the Advanced tab and click New Driver. Install the new driver by following the prompts.

Network Printers

Another question comes to mind. Are you connecting directly to the printer or is the printer a network computer that’s attached to another computer? If the printer is connected to the network, is it properly shared on the network? Are all involved computers properly set up for file and printer sharing (this is done in the Networking section of the Control Panel).

Wireless Printers 

Many new printers now have wireless capabilities. While these wireless printers are convenient, if they aren’t properly networked, printing becomes a challenge. Have you set up the wireless printer within your home network’s router? Is your laptop’s wireless card turned on?

If these basic steps don’t get you far, let us know the details surrounding your printer installation and any error messages so that we can provide a more detailed solution.

Computer holds print in queue and will only send to printer when computer is restarted.

Without more details, I am going to assume that you only have one printer installed on your computer, which should lead to an easy solution.

Printer Queue

The printer queue is the temporary place where all of the documents that are selected for printing go prior to actually being printed. The printer queue can become bogged down and create a problem such as you are suggesting. Fortunately, this has an easy fix. Perhaps you noticed jobs in the print queue taking forever to complete or refusing to stop printing when you clicked cancel. Whatever the reason behind your error, I think that it would be nice to avoid having to reboot each time you want to print something.

Stopping the Print Spooler

The term print spooler refers to the process of transferring the data from its present location to a temporary area where it can wait to be printed. If the print spooler service gets jammed up for whatever reason, the best way to deal with it is to stop it. These directions should solve the problem.

To stop the print spooler, follow these directions:

Open the Control Panel and select Administrative Tools. Next, select Services. You will need to look through the list of services in order to locate the one for print spooler.

Troubleshooting Print Spooler: Restart the Service for a Lexmark Printer

On the chance that the above solution did not work and you have a Lexmark printer, you can try the following directions to fix the problem.
Click the Start button. Click Run. Type services.msc and click OK. Locate Print Spooler in the list of services, right-click the service, and then left-click start. Locate Lexbce Server in the list of services, right-click the service, and left-click start. Locate RPC services in the list of services, right-click the service, and then left-click start
If you get an error while doing this, you should follow these steps:
Right-click Print Spooler. Select Properties. Click on the Recovery. Change all 3 drop-down boxes to indicate “Restart the Service.” Make sure the two text boxes underneath have a “1″ in them. Click OK until you are back at the Services window. Close that window. Perform the same for Lexbce Server and for RPC services. Restart RPC services and Lexbce Server. The final step is to restart the Print Spooler service. Print a test page first and look to make sure that it prints.