Transcript
Windows printer driver for the Sienna FotoPrint
User Manual
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Table of Contents 1 – About the FotoPrint driver ............................................................................................................... 1 Running the Installer ................................................................................................................................................... 1 Installing the driver ..................................................................................................................................................... 2 Choosing the port ........................................................................................................................................................ 2 Naming the printer....................................................................................................................................................... 4 Updating the driver...................................................................................................................................................... 4 Removing the driver.................................................................................................................................................... 5 Installing the hardlock driver....................................................................................................................................... 5 Confirming the installation.......................................................................................................................................... 5 Printing a test page ...................................................................................................................................................... 6
2 – Configuring the driver....................................................................................................................... 7 Setting the printer default settings ............................................................................................................................... 7 Setting the General properties ..................................................................................................................................... 8 Choosing and configuring the Port.............................................................................................................................. 8 Scheduling................................................................................................................................................................... 9 Sharing the printer ..................................................................................................................................................... 10 Security...................................................................................................................................................................... 11 Printer Information .................................................................................................................................................... 11 Setting the Device Settings........................................................................................................................................ 11 Using image compression when printing .................................................................................................................. 14 Set General document defaults .................................................................................................................................. 15 Set Advanced document options ............................................................................................................................... 16 The About tab............................................................................................................................................................ 20
3 – Using the driver................................................................................................................................ 21 Printing from an application...................................................................................................................................... 21 Using the Windows print spooler .............................................................................................................................. 22 Printing across a network .......................................................................................................................................... 22 Special Features with Timestone Software’s PrintTime............................................................................................ 22
1 1 – About the Sienna FotoPrint driver The installation process for the FotoPrint driver has a number of steps. Depending on which interface card you use to drive the FotoPrint, you will have different choices to make. The FotoPrint printer driver supports the following interface cards: !
Standard Built-in parallel port
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FarPoint card
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Ikon card
Both the FarPoint and Ikon cards require their own driver to be installed before you can install the FotoPrint printer driver. Please consult the relevant manufacturer’s documentation for information on how to install the driver for your card. When installing the printer driver, there are two distinct steps to the installation. First, the printer driver is installed, along with a FotoPrint Port. Once the FotoPrint Port has been installed and configured, you can add a FotoPrint printer to your Printers folder. Once both these steps are completed, you can use the printer driver. If you have a licensed version of the driver, you will have a hardlock protection device. The hardlock requires a device driver be installed in order for the driver to be used. The hardlock driver is included in the distribution CD. See later in this chapter for installation details for the hardlock driver.
Running the Installer Place the CD-Rom into the drive, or locate the downloaded file on your hard disk. Locate the installation application, Setup.exe and doubleclick it. The installer starts. There are a number of options available: !
Install Driver – Installs the Sienna FotoPrint printer driver
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Add Printer – Adds a FotoPrint printer to the printer folder
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Uninstall – Remove the printer driver from your system
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Close – Quit the Installer
Installing the driver Choose the printer to install From the installer main window, choose Install Driver. A list of supported printers is shown. Choose your printer and choose Install.
The files required by the driver are copied to your system.
After the files have been installed, you may be prompted to reboot the computer. Choose OK and allow the system to reboot. Once the machine has re-started, start the Setup application again. Note that when you pass the mouse over the Install Driver option, the Help text indicates that the driver has been installed.
Choosing the port The second main step is to add a printer for you to use to print to from your applications. Windows uses a printer port to communicate with printers. The FotoPrint driver needs to add a special port, the FotoPrint Port to use to communicate with the FotoPrint printer.
Choose the printer port From the installer main screen, choose Add Printer. A list of FotoPrint Ports is displayed. If you have not previously added a FotoPrint Port, the list will be empty. Choose Add Port…
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Add a FotoPrint port Enter the name for the FotoPrint port. The name is not important, but use something that identifies it as a FotoPrint type port. Now, click the Device drop-down box and choose the device you wish to use. There are several possible choices you might see here: !
LPTx: – Either a standard parallel port built into your computer, or the FotoPrint configured port
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Cpt: - The Ikon card port
FarPoint card ports
If you have installed a FarPoint card to use with your FotoPrint, you will have installed the Windows device driver for the card. This installation process installs a FarPoint control panel to your Control Panels folder. This control panel allows you to configure which LPT port the FarPoint card will use. You should use this port as the Device choice in the FotoPrint Port dialog. Ikon card port
The Ikon Windows device driver installs itself as a cpt device. When the Ikon card device driver is correctly installed, you will see a cpt choice in the FotoPrint Port device dropdown. Choose this device to use the Ikon card. Standard Parallel port
A standard parallel port will appear in the Device listing. To use the port, choose it from the drop-down.
Once you have entered a name, and chosen the output device, choose OK. The FotoPrint Port is created and added to the list of available ports.
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Select the FotoPrint Port Choose the port you want to use for the printer by choosing it in the list of available FotoPrint Ports and choose Next.
Naming the printer You are now asked to name the printer. You can use any name you wish here, but use something that will make it easily identifiable when printing across a network. Once you have entered a printer name, choose Finish. The printer icon is created and added to the Printers folder.
Updating the driver New versions of the printer driver are released from time to time. You can use the installer to upgrade the printer driver.
Identifying and updating a previous installation Start the Setup application, and pass the mouse over (don’t click it) the Install Driver option. Note that help text reads: Setup found an existing version of the driver already installed on this computer. Click install to update the installation.
Click Install Driver and follow the previous instructions to install the new driver. You don’t need to add a new printer.
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Removing the driver You can completely remove the printer driver from your computer by choosing Uninstall from the installer application. You will be asked to confirm the removal of the driver.
If you wish to proceed, choose OK. The driver and associated files are removed along with any printers you may have defined. After the removal process is completed, a success dialog is displayed. Choose OK to finish.
Installing the hardlock driver If you are running the licensed version of the driver, you will need to connect the hardlock to a parallel port, and install the Windows device driver. The device driver is included on the distribution CD in the \Hardlock directory. Locate the file hldrv32.exe and double click it to start the driver installation. Follow the onscreen prompts to install the device driver. Once the driver has been installed, shut down your computer, and connect the hardlock into a parallel port on your PC. Switch on the PC and allow it to boot.
Confirming the installation After the driver, printer, hardlock driver and hardlock have been installed to your PC, you can connect the FotoPrint printer. Using the cable that was supplied with the printer, or the special cable supplied with the Ikon card, connect the cable to the relevant PC port and to the FotoPrint’s printer port.
Printing a test page Make sure that the FotoPrint has warmed up and is On-line. Choose Start > Settings > Printers.
Open the printer spooler window The printer spooler window allows you to monitor the status of both the printer and jobs being printed by the FotoPrint. Open the window by double-clicking the FotoPrint icon in the Printers folder. If the title bar of the window reads Off-line or Out of Paper, check the connection to the FotoPrint, and that the FotoPrint is on-line. Leave the spooler window visible during the following tests to monitor the printer status.
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Printing a test page Choose Printer > Properties from the FotoPrint spooler window. The printer properties panel opens. Choose the General tab and click the Print Test Page button. Windows prints a test page to the FotoPrint. Unless an error is shown when printing the test page, choose Yes when Windows asks if the test page printed OK.
Note the activity in the spooler window and on the front panel of the FotoPrint. If all the previous connections and settings have been made correctly, the test page will be printed.
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2 2 – Configuring the driver Windows printers have a wealth of options and settings that control how you and the users can print to a printer. You can print to the printer from the same machine as the printer is connected to, or share the printer across a network. This means that any user on your computer network can print to the printer simply by connecting to the printer. Windows automatically installs the necessary driver to the remote workstation. System administrators can allocate various permissions for each user or group, allowing certain operators to print or not. A printer has various properties that need to be set. The two broad types of settings are: !
Printer defaults – settings that are specific to the printer – for example the installed paper width.
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Document defaults – default settings that the user will first see when they print to the printer. For example, a commonly used paper size, or a resolution.
A user can change the document defaults when printing to the printer, but not the printer defaults. You must make these default settings on the print server – that is, the computer that is actually connected to the printer.
Setting the printer default settings Before any prints can be made using the printer driver, the printer default settings must be set. Open the Printers folder by choosing Start > Settings > Printers. The Printers folder opens. Locate and right click the FotoPrint printer icon. Choose Properties from the contextual menu list – the Printer Properties dialog is displayed.
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Setting the General properties When the Properties dialog first opens, you will see the General Properties tab.
Comment If you want to add any comments regarding the printer, add them, here. This comment will appear when the user inspects the printer using a file browser such as My Computer or Windows Explorer.
Location If the printer is connected as a network device, enter the location of the printer here. There may be a location automatically added here if you are adding a network printer.
Driver Choose the driver this printer uses. You should not normally change this setting.
Separator Page Allows the addition of a separator page.
Print Processor Allows the selection of the print processor used to render the jobs. This setting should not normally be changed from RAW.
Print Test Page Prints the Windows printer test page.
Choosing and configuring the Port Choose the Ports tab from the Properties dialog. A list of the available ports is shown.
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Windows uses a port to communicate with the printer. The installation process will normally create and configure the port used by the FotoPrint printer driver. You can change the port the FotoPrint is connected to by choosing another port from the list. You would not normally change the settings here. If you are a System Administrator, you can manually add and configure a FotoPrint port using the Add Port button.
Scheduling The Scheduling tab allows you to specify options that control how pages are printed to the printer.
Available You can set when the printer is available for use by your printer operators.
Priority Sets the priority of the printer if you have multiple active printers installed.
Spooling settings When printing multi-page jobs, you can control when the printer will start printing pages. The options are: !
Start printing after the last page is spooled – The whole multi-page document must be spooled for printing before the first page is sent to the printer.
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Start printing immediately – As soon as the first page can be printed, it is sent to the printer.
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Print directly to the printer – the document is sent to the printer as the pages are rendered. This means that the application is tied up until the last page has been physically imaged by the FotoPrint.
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Sharing the printer Windows allows a printer to be shared across the computer network. This means that the machine that is connected to the actual FotoPrint acts as a print server. A remote workstation browsing the network can see, connect and print to the shared printer via the print server. This process is called sharing the printer. To share the printer, choose the Sharing tab. Choose Shared and type a name for the shared printer. You should not change any of the other settings.
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Security The security tab allows you to set the permission, ownership and various auditing functions. Please consult with the Windows documentation or your System Administrator when changing these settings.
Printer Information Important information such as version numbers are displayed in the Help tab.
Setting the Device Settings There are a number of printer specific settings that need to be made. These settings are the kind of thing that don’t usually change from document to document. Settings made here change those available as a document setting. These settings are made from the Device Settings tab.
Set the paper width Click the Installed Paper Roll Width. A list of the available widths is displayed at the bottom of the dialog. Choose the paper width currently installed in the FotoPrint. If you don’t see the paper width in the list that you want to use, click Other… Enter the desired width.
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Set the paper tracking As with many printers, it is possible for the FotoPrint paper position to vary slightly, resulting in a white line on the printed page. You can adjust the image position with the Paper Tracking adjustment. You can enter a positive or negative value as the tracking adjustment. !
Entering a negative value moves the image to the left of the CRT
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Entering a positive value moves the image to the right of the CRT
If you have 12 inch paper installed when using an FP5000, using the tracking adjustment will produce a similar result, but you may see some image cropping, as the FP5000 has an absolute image size of 12” wide. To enter a tracking value, choose it from the list of properties, then choose the button. The Paper Tracking Adjustment panel opens. Choose the units you wish to use, enter a value then choose OK. Test the result of the adjustment by printing an image.
Set the available forms You may use a number of standard paper sizes to print your jobs on the FotoPrint. The paper sizes defined here are those that the operator can select as the paper size when printing. Ensure Forms… is selected in the dialog, and choose Forms Setup… The Forms Setup dialog is displayed. Create a new form !
Click the New Form button. A new entry appears in the list. Enter the name for the new form.
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Choose the measurement units (English or Metric)
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Enter the paper dimensions.
If you want to add another new form, click the New button again and repeat the operation.
Remove a form Click the name of the form you wish to remove, and click the Delete button. The form is removed from the list.
Set which forms are available for selection. It is possible to set which forms are available to the operator when printing. Choose Listing from the list. The available settings are shown at the bottom of the dialog. !
Always list all forms
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Exclude forms wider than paper roll
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Only list forms with the same width as paper roll
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Using image compression when printing It is possible for remote workstations to print pages to the FotoPrint by installing it as a network printer. When you print from a remote workstation, the printed page is sent across the network to the print server where the image is sent to the physical printer. If you are printing many high resolution images, you will notice that the amount of image data sent across your computer network is very large, potentially slowing the network. The FotoPrint printer driver offers image compression when sending the printed pages in this manner. This means that before the printed image data is sent across the network, it is compressed using either JPEG or PNG compression. When it arrives at the print server, the image data is de-compressed and then sent to the printer. The compression / decompression can slow print times slightly, but the benefits offered to your network may make it an attractive option. You can choose either PNG or JPEG compression. PNG is designed to be a ‘lossless’ compressed image format, while JPEG is better known, but is ‘lossy’. A higher compression factor with JPEG will result in poorer image quality, but smaller files. Using PNG may be slower than JPEG. There are various options available when choosing an image compression format. Choose the format you wish to use, then Setup. The options available are displayed.
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Setting the Printer Security The Windows printer driver model allows for printer security when users use the print driver. This is very useful in a large lab environment to ensure that only authorised personnel can print files to the FotoPrint. Choose the Security tab.
Setting General document defaults When a document is printed to the printer, there are various options that are specific to the document being printed. Options like the page size, resolution and image quality. These options are document settings, and can be set as a document default for a printer, or individually for each document printed by the operator. Any settings made to the printer’s Document Default will be the settings that an operator will first see when they choose the printer. Some of the options are also influenced by the Printer Defaults set previously. For example, if you chose to only list paper sizes the same width as the installed paper, only those page sizes will be available from the Document settings panel. An operator can choose their own settings for each document by choosing the Properties button in the Print Setup panel from the application.
Set the default paper size Open the Printers folder and right click the printer. Choose Document Defaults from the menu. Choose the Page Setup tab. Choose the default page, print quantity and orientation.
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Setting Advanced document options Advanced options are chosen from the Advanced tab.
Set the resolution Choose the resolution used to print the document.
Set the Image sharpness The printed image can be sharpened by enabling sharpening. Choose the Document Options, and click Enabled.
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Change the sharpening amount The amount of sharpening applied can be adjusted between 50 and 300. Clicking Advanced allows the kernel size to be adjusted between 3 and 7.
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The amount of sharpening required is highly dependent on your system. Test a few different settings to determine those that suit you best. Note that choosing a higher kernel amount can increase the time required to sharpen an image.
Set the MultiPrint mode The FotoPrint series printers support a number of imaging modes when printing single or multiple copies of a page. You can control the mode image data is sent to the FotoPrint with the MultiPrint settings.
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You must have sufficient memory installed in the FotoPrint to use MultiPrint mode. If your FotoPrint doesn’t have sufficient memory installed and you choose to use MultiPrint mode, the FotoPrint will give an error. When MultiPrint is enabled, the image data is downloaded into the FotoPrint’s on-board memory before the image is printed. If multiple copies of the same image are requested, subsequent prints can be made immediately from the image data in the FotoPrint memory. If MultiPrint is not used, imaging starts immediately the image starts to download to the FotoPrint, and continues as the image data is sent. This image data is discarded after it has been downloaded, meaning that for if multiple copies are requested, the image data will be sent for each individual print. This is a slower process when printing multiple copies. There are three options when setting MultiPrint mode: !
Never – MultiPrint mode is never used
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When printing multiple copies – MultiPrint mode is used if more than one copy is required
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Always – MultiPrint mode is always used
Set the Over-bleed When printing images to the FotoPrint, it is possible that the paper can move slightly in the paper track. This can mean that you will see the occasional print that has a white edge where the paper has moved. You can enlarge the image slightly to address this issue by selecting the Over-Bleed option. When Over-bleed is enabled, the image being printed will be enlarged by .1 inch on either side of the print. This means the image is enlarged by up to .2 inch overall. There are several conditions where this over-bleed is not possible because of physical limitations within the FotoPrint: !
The FP 5000 has a maximum image width of 12.0 inches. When printing a 12” wide image, overbleed is not possible.
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When using 11 inch paper in the FP5000, the paper is left aligned to the extreme edge of the CRT. Overbleed is not possible on the left size of the image, but is possible on the right side. In this case, over-bleed is applied to the right edge of the print, but not the left.
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The FP2000/3000 and RP2400 has a maximum image width of 8.673 inches. When printing an 8.5 wide image, the full .2 inch overbleed is not possible. The maximum available over-bleed is used in this case.
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The FP500/1000 has a maximum image width of 8.0 inches. When printing an 8” wide image, overbleed is not possible.
To enable Over-bleed, expand the Document Options, then choose Over-bleed from the list of options. Choose Enabled from the settings.
Set rendering banding If your workstation doesn’t have much memory installed, you can set the pages to be rendered in bands. This means that the page is rendered in chunks rather than as a single page. Rendering pages in this way will allow you to print with less memory installed, but will result in longer print times. To set the banding option, expand the Document Options, then choose Banding from the list of options. Choose Enabled from the settings. Set the bands that are rendered by choosing the Banding size from the list. Set each band size.
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The About tab Important version information is included in the About tab. If you are speaking with technical support, they may ask you to check the version numbers for the driver. Choose the About tab and record the required information.
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3 3 – Using the driver Once the driver has been installed, and the printer defaults set, it is available for use within Windows. When the user prints from the driver, they can specify various settings for the particular job they are printing. There are a number of things that cannot be changed (such as resolution range, paper width), as they are a printer default. Using the print driver is gathered into three main areas: !
Printing from an application
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Using the Windows print spooler
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Printing across a network
Printing from an application Using the printer driver will be a familiar operation to the user. The user can choose to set the printer document settings from the Properties dialog within the application they are using. Please consult the Windows documentation and application user manual for information on printing.
Supported applications You can print from any standard Windows application with the FotoPrint driver. Each application you use will offer different ways and features when printing to a printer. The FotoPrint driver is not a PostScript compatible driver. If you try to print from an application that contains embedded PostScript the PostScript content will be the lowresolution preview only.
Setting the document options As mentioned, you can set various document defaults for a printer. When the operator first uses the printer, these options will be the ones that will appear. The user can make their own settings as desired. For a detailed description of the settings, please consult the previous chapter.
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Using the Windows print spooler Windows uses the Print Spooler to allow you to control the jobs submitted to the printer. When a document is submitted to the spooler, a printer icon will appear in the System tray at the right of the Task Bar. Printer icon in the System Tray
Double-clicking the icon opens the Spooler window. You can also open the spooler window by opening the Printers folder, then double-clicking the printer’s icon. When a job is submitted to the Windows spooler, it can be controlled by the operators on the network or on the print server. The spooler allows functions such as pausing the printer, cancelling jobs, promoting a job’s priority and so on. Please consult the Windows help system or your System Administrator for information regarding using the spooler.
Printer condition reporting There are various messages regarding the printer’s status that can be reported by the spooler window. These messages are displayed in the spooler’s title bar. Please consult the following chapter for information regarding these messages.
Printing across a network Windows printer drivers allow printer sharing across a computer network. You should consult your Windows help system, user documentation or System Administrator for detailed information regarding printer sharing.
Network Traffic Because the files you print to the FotoPrint are high-resolution, printing across a computer network involves sending large amounts of data. If you have several operators printing to the FotoPrint across a network, you may find that the network will slow. If you experience this issue, you should enable image compression as described in a previous chapter.
Special Features with Timestone Software’s PrintTime Timestone Software has created an imaging tool that simplifies the task of printing images to the printer. It also offers special support when printing image files that are pre-sized
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ready to print. These files might come from a third-party application that creates bitmap files for its jobs. Normally, when PrintTime prints a job, it process the image data through the normal Windows print layers. This process takes some time. When the image files you are printing have been correctly sized, this extra processing time is un-necessary. PrintTime works with the printer driver to by-pass these layers, and send the image data directly to the printer. Please consult the PrintTime documentation for information on this function.
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