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| Printer FAQs |
Which printer should we buy for school use?
The printers recommended for use in schools are specific models from the HP range, principally because they are not only cross platform and network
compliant, but also because they support DMR/Click & Go printing from both PCs and Macs.
Please note that not all modern printers support DMR and Click & Go printing properly - we have tested a wide range of printers and
HP printers have proved to be the appropriate choice.
Network or stand-alone printer?
A network printer connects to the school network and can be accessed by multiple computers connected to the network.
Each printer on the network is identified with its own name so that you can choose where you want your print job to go.
The network and/or computers can be configured to ensure that printers are kept private.
For example, you would not wish to have pupils printing to a network printer in the school office.
Wirelesslaptops will also be able to print to a network printer.
The cost of including network capability on a printer is relatively small,typically £80 or so.
It therefore makes sense to buy network ready printers even where you expect only to use it in a stand-alone situation.
If the printer is network ready, it is easier to redeploy it for more general use.
It also means , for example, that an office assistant could print a report directly to the head teacher's printer or a class teacher
could print an example of good pupil work directly to senior staff or colleagues.
In the event of printer failures, network printers offer more flexibility.
The printers recommended include USB and Parallel interfaces to support Mac & PC stand-alone printing.
Inkjet or laser?
In a modern networked environment the recommendation is to avoid lots of ink jet printers which though cheap to buy inevitably become a significant recurring cost for replacement ink cartridges.
Initially laser printers are more expensive to purchase but the recurring costs for toner are a fraction of ink jet costs - typically a black toner cartridge will cost £50 but provide 4,000+ pages (assuming normal print density on an A4 page).
A network laser printer will be able to support access from multiple computers without difficulty and in a modern open plan environment one laser printer in an area will suffice.
Should we buy a bigger printer to cope with more users?
The answer generally is no, better to buy two or more standard laser printers rather than one big printer with the added benefit that if one fails there is still another available.
Is print speed important?
Print speeds become important when large numbers of users are accessing one printer, or when large documents are regularly printed.
However quoted speeds refer to repeat pages (i.e. multiple copies of the samepage).
The time taken to start printing a page is dependent on the complexity of the page, e.g. if it has multiple photos or complex graphics embedded the time taken to start printing will be significantly longer than a plain text page.
Colour lasers take longer to print colour pages since the paper is passed back and forwards 4 times, one pass for each colour of toner.
Inkjets are able to apply & mix colour in a single pass and are therefore generally quicker than laser printers once the page starts to print.
What is duplex printing?
Duplex printing is double sided printing, previously a feature of high end printers but now available on some standard printers like the HP 1320N laser printer.
Double sided printing used to be associated with paperjams in photo copiers where large print runs were taking place but modern printers have much simpler paper paths and offer reliable double sided printing.
Colour or mono?
The use of colour printing for all purposes should be discouraged, particularly in the context of drafting and redrafting documents.
Too often draft documents are printed in colour where mono is more appropriate; colour printing should be used where appropriate, for example
in final reports or display of pupil work.
Colour printers which mix colours to produce black, typically cheap inkjets, should be avoided since they are very expensive to run.
Colour printers, whether inkjet or laser, should include a 'black' cartridge which allows mono printing without colour mixing and which allows the 'black' cartridge to be changed independently of the colour cartridges.
Colours are generally produced by mixing three primary colours - cyan,magenta and yellow.
The three colour cartridges in laser printers can be changed independently.
In some inkjets the three colours are provided in a single cartridge which inevitably means waste and higher costs.
Printer language - PCL5/6 or Postscript?
The printer language allows the computer to describe the page to be printed to the receiving printer.
Postscript is widely used for complex documents where detail is important, e.g. photographs and complex graphics, and is the default page description used in pdf files.
PCL5 is an older print description language which is used by SEEMIS DMR to print reports etc.
Printers which do not have PCL5 compliance will not print DMR reports properly.
HP printers have an additional advantage in the way that they listen on the network for PCL5 data, allowing successful DMR printing from both Mac & PC systems to network printers.
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