Hewlett Packard Inkjet printing

This article should be of interest to anyone using HP Inkjet printers, Rod Jenkins reports...

HP Deskjet problem fixed!

The problem has driven me (almost) to distraction since disposing of my HP 520 in favour of a 660C. System Solutions refused to help because the NVDI driver supplied is for the HP 550C.

I also tried a PD HP 660C driver but this was not the solution.

However, thanks to Wilfred Behne of Behne & Behne Systemsoftware in Germany, there now is a solution - at least for NVDI users. The solution may also work for other programs which have editable printer drivers but unfortunately, as far as I am aware SpeedoGDOS drivers are not editable.

While it was possible to adjust the margins to some extent in the 500 series of HP printers, the 600 series saw the introduction of printers without any external DIP switches or other means of adjustment - all adjustment is now carried out through software supplied with the printer, which leaves Atari users out in the cold.

However, there is an exception, and that is the Papyrus 850 and 850C printer drivers (and only the 850 and 850C, not the 500 or 550C) which will print to almost half an inch from the bottom of the page, thanks to the printer driver codes used.

The HP 660C printer margins for A4 paper are:

• Top 0.04 inch (1mm)
• Bottom 0.59 inch (14.9mm)
• Printable area is 8.0 x 11.07 inches

Unfortunately the quality of the Papyrus colour prints leave a lot to be desired in respect to colour definition and contrast, and appear dark and muddy when compared to the quality available from the excellent Imagecopy program, so while printing to the bottom of the page with the 850 drivers is possible, the colour picture output is barely adequate.

The most suitable compromise available for Atari users has been NVDI which produces very good colour output but with the drawback the HP 550C printer driver will only print to around 30mm from the bottom of the page. All attempts to print lower than this on the page using the various facilities provided by either Papyrus (with the exception of the HP850 drivers, as stated above) or NVDI had previously failed.

Now, thanks to NVDI programmer, Wilfried Behne of Behne & Behne Systemsoftware in Germany help is at hand.

NVDI is supplied with a utility called MAKEPRN. This program allows the user to set the margins of the paper, or so it seemed to me, but Wilfried advised that MAKEPRN does not change the margins - it describes the physical margins of your printer.

What you have to do is to insert the control code which sets the printer for the page size you are using after ESC "*rbC" and the problem is fixed!
For NVDI users of the 550C driver:
Run MAKEPRN then in Control Codes change the line for Page Start by adding ESC "&l26A" after ESC "*rbC"

Click above for full size before and after image...

You need to edit the Page start line in the Control Characters page from:
ESC "*rbC" ESC "&l0o0L" ESC "*t300R" ESC "r0A"
To:
ESC "*rbC" ESC "&l26A" ESC "&l0o0L" ESC "*t300R" ESC "*r0A"

l26A sets A4 paper, for other page sizes substitute the appropriate value from the table below.

The bracketed (a), (097), and (61) shown throughout the table are alternatives to the final "A" and decimal/hexadecimal equivalents if this command is to be combined with others also starting with Esc&l so you don't have to duplicate the prefix each time.

Papyrus users may like to inspect the control codes of the HP 850 or 850C driver (not the 500 or 550C) under Printer, Cut Sheet, you will see this page description inserted on the Start Of Page line using this page size code. I would imagine that the 500 and 550C drivers can be amended to agree with the 850 and 850C codes, although I haven't tried this.

For all other HP Deskjet users, look at your printer drivers to see if a similar modifcation is possible for the program you are using, and if you can insert this code to describe the paper you are using, there is every possibility that you will be able to amend your printer driver in the same fashion. You may have to experiment where the code is placed, but the above example will give you the idea of where it should be placed.

I suspect that HP Deskjet printers have a default bottom margin of 30mm which is set automatically in the absence of a page description, hence the common problem.

NVDI 5 news

NVDI 5 will also eliminate the printer margin problems by using paper format specific commands for every printer.

Colour printing

In AC#8 Les Charles described the excellent HP 693C printer and its colour printing capabilities but even better quality can be obtained using NVDI - almost approaching Imagecopy quality, which is praise indeed!

Although Deskjet printers produce impressive results with plain paper for really bright high definition colour prints you need to use special paper.

Hewlett Packard produce their own range of special inkjet papers from HP Premium Inkjet Paper to HP Glossy paper and with the right combination of paper, printer driver and image, you can produce absolutely stunning results you never thought possible from your Deskjet - at a price, the special paper is expensive.

NVDI colour printing

• Black
• Halftone
• 8 colour
• TrueColor

By the way, the NVDI 8 colour mode is identical to the colour mode supported by the internal Papyrus printer drivers.

The advantage of the NVDI choice of output is that you can choose straight black for printing text only, which is very quick and if printing in colour where output speed is more important than high definition output, then you can select 8 colour mode and reserve TrueColor for those ocassions where quality is paramount.

NVDI printing speeds can be improved with the correct use of caches and a printer spooler, as detailed in the NVDI manual - and referred to by Rob Perry in AC#6. MagiC 5 also includes a faster printing routine for NVDI users.

Thanks to Wilfried Behne of Behne & Behne Systemsoftware, Germany (of NVDI) for his invaluable technical advice and assistance.

© 1998 Rod Jenkins, HTML implementation © 1998 Joe Connor