Chapter 13: Working with Printers

Introduction

Printing is one of the computer concepts that most people are familiar with. As prices come down on hardware, more people are buying printers for home use. In addition to prices coming down, printing features are increasing. Printers are available now that can print a photo that looks exactly like the original. Surprisingly, these advanced color printers cost less than the black and white printers that you could buy five years ago.

Ok, so we understand why people would have printers at home desktop publishing, organizing bills, writing letters, and so on. In this electronic age why would any large business ever need a printer? Doesn t the technology exist to have a paperless office? The technology does exist, but for whatever reason people just love to print. If you have ever worked in desktop support, you know that there are three things that concern most users. Can they check their e-mail, can they surf the Internet, and can they print? Go into any office, large or small, and you will find printers being used. In large companies, it is not uncommon for a user to map to three or more printers. For example, he might map to a heavy-duty network enabled LaserJet for printing text documents and a local color printer for printing pictures. More than likely, he also maps to a few backup printers in case one of the preferred printers go down. Some companies depend on printing to stay in business. For example, mortgage companies could not currently...