Wednesday, July 11, 2012

Spoke too soon re new printer

Remember I had hoped to get the St. Albert Public Library fair stall finished tonight? Other than a couple crates of boxes under the stall - Didn't happen!

And why?

Because my lovely new printer won't print on cardstock!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My last two printers have been by Canon and they were great! (I just wore them out!) So my intention was to buy another Canon.

Note: I had well over $150.00 in unused ink cartridges left over from my old Canon but DS Marie has a Canon that will take them so that was a BIG relief.

But because of the volume of printing that I do (because of The Book* that I do for my family and friends each year), the salesman at Staples suggested that I buy the HP Officejet Pro 8600. One thing I really liked about it was that it comes with a choice of ink cartridge size - if you have BIG printing jobs, you can get a large (in terms of printing) ink cartridge. It can also fax, copy and scan. Not important to me, especially since I bought a stand-alone scanner about a month ago. (Another bone of contention in addition to the unused ink cartridges!)

Because I've never had a printer that wouldn't print on card stock, I just assumed that this one would. Let's face it! As a miniaturist, printing on card stock is important to me.

Remember the reason I discovered that my old printer was no longer working was that I couldn't print a page for Pamela? This is the page:


Once I got the new printer hooked up, it took a couple tries but I finally got four copies of that printed on a very light card stock.

Didn't think too much of it at the time.

Then I had some pieces that I wanted to print on 110# card stock for the St. Albert Public Library fair stall.

Well, forget it!

Every time I tried to print anything on card stock, the printer would try, then tell me it was out of paper. (And, yes, I did change the paper properties to card stock.) SO I would keep trying to the point I was worried that I would damage the drive that pulls up the paper.

So I Googled HP Officejet Pro 8600 print on card stock and discovered this is a major problem with this printer! One of the sites that came up was the HP forum so I tried all the solutions that were suggested there. One worked - for printing one copy - but only on 60# card stock - not the 110# I mostly want to use!

In all I spent at least three hours on the computer trying to solve this on my own. Finally found a "Contact Us" selection on HP Canada where I vented my feelings and frustration. I'm anxious to hear what they'll tell me.

Darn! It's a nice printer but I don't think I can manage with one that doesn't print on card stock!

So that's my sad tale for today...............

About the only good thing about today is that the low temperature forecast for tonight is 14C so with all the windows/balcony doors open and the fans on, it should cool off a bit inside here tonight.

* "The Book" is a book I put together each year. It consists of e-mail forwards, jokes, quotations, poems, etc. It all began during my Dad's final battle with cancer. I would print out things I thought he would enjoy and take them to him. At one point, Mom said, "You should put them in a book." So I did! Dad was alive for the first one and I've done one every year since.

"The Book" is my Christmas gift to my Mom and my sisters and it is our custom to sit quietly and read it after Christmas dinner. Over the years, copies of it have been my gift to friends who are going through rough times.

I usually print about 12 copies of it and it runs anywhere from 140 - 225 pages so it really adds to my 'pages printed' total.

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