BayTech PS-4E Specifications

The Evolution of Printing and ScanningTechnologyWhen the personal computer was first developed in the late 1970s, many people thought that we’dsee the

On a dot-matrix printer, you might be able to select various resolutions, fonts, and speeds, dependingon the printer’s capabilities. The printer drive

The more flexible your printing needs, the less likely it is that a host-based printer can meet them. Ifyou plan to use nothing but Windows or Macinto

with your work (in most cases) until the entire print job has been transmitted to the printer.Multitasking operating systems, such as Windows 9x/Me/20

Figure 1 Examples of previewing three TrueType scalable typefaces: monospaced (Century SchoolbookMonospace BT; upper left), sans-serif (Lucida Sans Re

resolution of the typical monitor; Windows 9x, for example, uses the MS Sans Serif bitmap font in various sizes for itsmenus and onscreen icon display

wanted to integrate a PostScript-style scalable font engine into their respective operating systems, butneither of them wanted to delegate the control

drivers included with Windows are usually developed by the manufacturer of the printer—not byMicrosoft—and are included in the Windows package for the

Laser scanning Toner application Toner fusingVarious printers perform these procedures in various ways, but the steps are fundamentally the same.L

Make sure you are using an IEEE-1284 parallel printer cable. Many inexpensive cables still sold in stores do notsupport IEEE-1284 modes, such as EPP

RasterizingThe result of the formatting process is a detailed set of commands defining the exact placement ofevery character and graphic on each page

Dot matrix. Dot-matrix printers use an array of round-headed pins to press an inked ribbonagainst a page. The pins are arranged in a rectangular gri

Figure 2 The stages of laser imaging with a typical laser printer are shown here.The laser assembly in a laser printer, sometimes called a raster outp

CautionOzone is a noxious and corrosive gas that should be avoided in closed, unventilated spaces. Although ozone is used todeodorize air and purify w

Figure 3 A laser printer’s print engine largely revolves around a photoreceptor drum that receives the doc-ument image from the laser and applies it t

Figure 4 Laser printing produces an attractive “embossed” appearance because the toner is fused to thesurface of the paper. Extremely rough paper can

LED page printers are capable of printing all four colors in a single pass of the drum. Laser printers, on the other hand,must apply cyan, yellow, mag

inkjet printing normally use an ink cartridge that also contains the print head, or, as in the case ofCanon BubbleJet printers, a removable and replac

Multicolor layering. HP inkjet printers use two forms of a process referred to as Photo REt:• Photo REtII. It places 16 dots of ink in various color

Figure 7 Special papers, such as Canon’s four-layer inkjet photo-quality paper shown here, are essential togetting the best possible print quality fro

and optional scanning heads (which replace the normal print head). Although portable printers can’tcompete in features or speed with desktop printers,

print head contains a matrix of metal pins (usually either 9 or 24) that it extends in various combina-tions to make a physical impression on the pape

As a result, the claims of WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) output by software and hardwaremanufacturers are valid only in the roughest sense. E

Figure 8 Color laser and LED printers transfer the ink (left) to a photoconductor surface (top center)before it can be transferred to paper. Because f

Color Inkjet PrintersInkjet printers use a fairly simple technology that is easy to adapt to color use and initially is the mostinexpensive. In fact,

Use the printer selection criteria section later in this chapter to help you focus on the most importantfeatures you need.Color Laser PrintersColor la

Solid-Ink PrintersI’ve become somewhat jaded in this business; it takes something really astounding to get me excited.Well, excited is exactly how I f

various colors. This means that most color lasers, such as the HP 4500 series, end up with a 4-page-per-minute (ppm) output rate. By comparison, the X

Dye-Sublimation PrintersDye sublimation, also called thermal dye transfer, is a printing technique that uses ribbons containingfour colored dyes the p

PC Card and Compact Flash slots for direct import of digital photos into the printer, so you canprint without a computer Duplex operation for doubl

One variable not figured in the previous discussion can substantially change the cost-per-page picture:the cost of paper.The typical monochrome laser

Use the following feature checklists to help you focus on the most important features. Three check-lists are presented: one for SOHO users, one for ne

Network UsersA printer that will be shared among many users needs more horsepower and more features than aprinter meant for a single user. Some featur

InterpolationIn addition, many printers produce higher-resolution output by means of a process calledinterpolation. Printer resolution is not just a p

Mobile UsersMobile printer users have limited platform choices because only thermal or small inkjet printers areavailable. However, a checklist can st

PostScript-only printers must receive PostScript commands to print. A simple printer test that does work with PostScript print-ers is part of the vene

1. Select a printer manufacturer2. Select the model of printer3. Select the port (serial, parallel, network, or USB)This process is performed through

Windows 9x/Me/NT/2000 Driver InstallationWindows 9x, Windows Me, Windows NT, and Windows 2000 include a wizard for installing printerdrivers that walk

Microsoft provides various ways for vendors to receive digital signatures for their device drivers; there-fore, over time, the use of unsigned drivers

Many printer drivers include a Fonts page that lets you control how the driver treats the TrueTypefonts in the documents you print. The usual options

After you have created the share, the printer appears to other users on the network just like a shareddrive. To access the printer, a network user mus

modes, such as EPP and ECP. Autosensing switchboxes that support IEEE-1284 modes work with mostmodern laser and inkjet printers, and they also enable

CautionIt is particularly important to follow the manufacturer’s recommendations regarding safety whenever you are working insidea laser printer. Apar

TipIf you want to run heavier-than-usual paper or card stock through a laser printer, see whether you can set the printer to usea straight-through pap

document overall. However, techniques such as resolution enhancement and interpolation do notapply to dot-matrix technology, making the resolution of

Fuzzy print. On a laser printer, characters that are suddenly fuzzy or unclear are probably theresult of using paper that is slightly damp. On an in

Gray print or gray background. As the photoreceptor drum in a laser printer wears, it begins tohold less of a charge, and less toner adheres to the

job. For example, a PostScript print job must begin with the two characters %!. If the printerfails to receive these characters, all the remaining dat

Driver ProblemsThe best way to determine whether a printer driver is causing a particular problem is to stop using it.If a problem printing from a Wi

Network Printing Problems Can’t print to a networked printer. Make sure you have rights to the printer; you must log on tothe network to be able to u

On most models, sliding controls on the scanner are used to determine the resolution (dpi) used forscanning, along with the brightness of the scan. Bl

Sheetfed Scanners—”Faxing” Without the FaxHand scanners have been replaced by more powerful, less fussy scanner technologies that are nowoften similar

As with other types of scanners, reflected light is used to start the imaging process, but flatbed scan-ners require a more precise design than hand o

scanners also offer a second resolution in which the scanner’s software driver fills in fine detailslost when detailed line art or text is scanned. Th

Also, prints are at or near the size they’ll be when reprinted after scanning. However, slides and negatives are only24mm×36mm (about 1”×1.5”) and mus

printed, PCL consists largely of commands designed to trigger various features and capabilities of theprinter. These commands fall into four categorie

Parallel-port scanners have some significant disadvantages, though. First, juggling any combination ofdevices beyond a scanner and a printer can be di

host PC. The IEEE-1394 (i.Link) interface is now available on high-performance scanners from Epson,UMAX, and others, enabling large amounts of scanned

This integration enables a Photoshop user, for example, to choose a TWAIN device as an image source,start the device (a scanner, for example), scan th

If you’ll be using a scanner bundled with a SCSI card and cable, the cable you receive will workfine, but you must ensure that your scanner’s terminat

the scanner. If this fails or if the scanner’s a parallel-port model, you must turn on the scanner andrestart the computer to enable the scanner to be

Print is fuzzy and lacks definition. You might have scanned the photograph at 72dpi instead of200dpi or higher (depending on the printer). Because i

Although PCL is wholly owned and developed by Hewlett-Packard, this company’s long-term domi-nance in the printer market has made it a de facto standa

For more information about PostScript’s standard and optional features and uses, see Adobe’s Website.NoteFor users who want to retrofit the graphics p

Both PCL and PostScript are available in a variety of printers. The Macintosh printing platform isdesigned around PostScript, which is standard equipm