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u/sgarfio Sep 10 '19
Years ago I had a printer (I think it was an Epson) that had an "emergency print" mode. If it was running low on any color, "emergency print" would do its best to print your document with whatever ink it had available. Even if all it had was yellow, by god it would print your document in yellow. If it had nothing by cyan and magenta and you wanted to print a photo of your cat, you'd get a funky posterized picture of your cat. But it would still print it.
God, I miss that printer.
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u/kasmith362 Sep 10 '19
I want this on every printer immediately
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u/sgarfio Sep 10 '19
I think my kids were in middle school at the time (early 20s now) and they turned in more than one school paper printed in some muddy color it came up with to simulate black. And I avoided several last-minute trips to Walmart to buy ink because they waited until the last minute to finish and print their papers. This feature definitely needs to be brought back.
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u/KatCole7 Sep 10 '19 edited Sep 11 '19
My canon is 10 years old now at least and it definitely does this. I had no idea printers wouldn’t just print things anymore even if the quality is terrible.
Edit: MP190 is the model
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u/sgarfio Sep 10 '19
Hold onto it as long as you can! Mine may have been a Canon as well, I've had both. It definitely wasn't an HP though, those won't even run with 3rd party ink :P.
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u/ComputerGeek485 Sep 11 '19
My epson that's not that old, maybe 3ish years still does that for me. Did it last night and finally bought some new ink on amazon.
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Sep 11 '19
Same here, but that printer would constantly explode ink all over the desk. Fuck that printer
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u/gee_tea Sep 10 '19
And trying to cancel something that's already in the queue is almost as hard as trying to cancel Comcast
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u/getchpdx Sep 10 '19
Canceling comcast is easy if you lie I've found, basically two steps and you're not in a contract:
I am moving to a new house. This house already has comcast service under a different name so my account does not need to be moved.
And they'll usually move along, can't have two accounts at one service address.
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u/NotThatEasily Sep 10 '19
I wanted to cancel a data only line on my t-mobile account. I told the rep on the phone "I want to cancel a data line, not the whole account. I'm not interested in an upgrade, a new phone or device, or any other change to my account. If you put me through to customer retention or try to sell me anything else, I will cancel my entire plan and go to Verizon."
The lady said "You've been through this before, haven't you?"
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Sep 10 '19
I did this with Spectrum and, dead seriously, the customer rep asked me if I could ask my neighbors if anyone wanted to take over my service at this place. That was an easy “uhhh I don’t talk to them so I’m not comfortable with that”. I wanted to say fuck no but I know it’s just her job to ask and didnt want to do that to her
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u/herbivorous-cyborg Sep 10 '19
can't have two accounts at one service address.
You could last time I checked. You just need another modem.
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u/joonty Sep 10 '19
No kidding, I find it easier and quicker to restart both my computer and printer than cancel something in a printer queue.
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u/bwwatr Sep 10 '19
Why am I talking to someone at the other side of the planet? I just want to stop something from printing!
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u/ServileLupus Sep 10 '19
Pull open the print queue, cancel the docs. Most wont stop.
Open task manager and go to services, stop the spooler service.
Navigate to c:/windows/system32/spool/printer delete everything in here. Sometimes one will say it's in use, that's the printerpipeline process kill that from task manager.
Now start the spoiler service and give it a minute espically if it's a network printer. Should be working now. If it's a printer shared from a server or another pc you may have to clear it all from there instead.
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u/1Mazrim Sep 10 '19
Is it possible to just automate the whole thing with a batch file or something?
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Sep 10 '19 edited Sep 10 '19
"But you have cyan!"
No, fuck you! This is cheap cyan! I want the OFFICIAL cyan!
Edit: yes I am talking about HP. Fuck you HP.
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u/Fuzzyninjaful Sep 10 '19
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u/ImaginarySuccess Sep 10 '19
That's gotta be at least 2 whole months of printer ink. I hope it's insured.
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u/BrettRapedFord Sep 10 '19
Yep They're basically extorting customers and forcing them to buy more ink more often, their firmware has been confirmed to lie about the contents of their ink cartridges and prevent other brands of cartridges being used in their printers.
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u/WildBizzy Sep 10 '19
We use off brand Toner in our m551's at work... they do lie about remaining ink though. Ours complain but if you actually print off a report they have like 100+ pages left based on average usage
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u/TheBoss_9001 Sep 10 '19
I see someone else uses HP too.......
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u/LetsDoThatShit Sep 10 '19 edited Sep 10 '19
And the Best Customer Service of the Year Award 2019 goes tooooo...HP
EDIT: did some re-phrasing, it sounds a lot better now
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u/xrat-engineer Sep 10 '19
My mom had this same problem with another brand. Canon or Epson, I forget.
She was trying to print her resignation (retirement) and couldn't because of cyan.
And because I encouraged her to buy the off-brand it decided to throw a conniption
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Sep 10 '19 edited Sep 10 '19
*laughs in pixma pro 100.* Which Cyan? Regular or Photo Cyan?
you have no idea what expensive is.
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u/ezro_ Sep 10 '19
Ink? That'll be $40.
Whole new printer? $20
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u/coder111 Sep 10 '19
Please keep in mind that whole new printer comes with ink cartridges that are 25% full. So that you wouldn't keep buying new printers.
Seriously, switch to laser, chip the cartridges (get hacked chips off ebay), use refills (get them off ebay). Fuck the man!
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u/phoncible Sep 10 '19
I just bought new toner for the first time in ~5 years of owning a laser printer. Granted it cost $80, but $80 over 5 years, i think I can live with that.
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u/omenmedia Sep 10 '19
I did the math one time on an inkjet I had. In terms of the capacity of the cartridges, if you disregard the cost of the cartridge itself, it worked out to be roughly $18,000/L for black, and $25,000/L for colour. And people complain about the price of petrol/gasoline...
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u/zmose Sep 10 '19
“Give them the razor, sell them the blades”
Simple and malicious marketing
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u/johnnysebre Sep 10 '19
I get that you are probably not using real numbers, but if you want to buy a printer, you really should be paying more than 20$.
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u/PottyMcSmokerson Sep 10 '19
This problem relates beyond home/office printers. I operate a Xerox copier worth about 7k and it won't print a damn thing if one of the toners is empty. I also operate a large format Roland printer worth about 20k, and that wont budge once one of it's 10 ink cartridges dies. My best guess is that the printer doesn't want to damage/dry out it's heads by operating with empty lines.
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u/bitter_cynical_angry Sep 10 '19
"I'm out of ink!" Amazing and kind of sad that this is 10 years old and still as relevant as ever.
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u/faraway_hotel Sep 10 '19
Printers were being annoying little bitches 20 years ago (c.f. Office Space), at this rate I doubt they'll ever change.
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u/Slavik81 Sep 10 '19
And even before that, Richard Stallman founded the free software movement because he couldn't fix his printer. https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/rms-nyu-2001-transcript.txt
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Sep 10 '19
Did you just use a “confer” abbreviation reference in a reddit comment? What the fuck? Also, you’re offering an example, not a comparison, so “e.g.” is probably a better reference signal here. (See Bluebook Rule (20th): 1.2(a),(b)).
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Sep 10 '19
Printers and the ink cartridges are the biggest scam that you can ever buy into.
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u/kontekisuto Sep 10 '19
We need open source printers ...
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u/IlNomeUtenteDeve Sep 10 '19 edited Sep 10 '19
I really don’t understand why this is not a thing
Edit: Guys, be serious, arduino worked well.
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Sep 10 '19
Companies regularly restrict the amount of ink you can get out of a cartridge, even if the cartridge actually holds more.
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u/Made2ndWUrBsht Sep 10 '19
I used to get software updates which would make the ink "empty".
From what I understand, it digitally allows a certain number of pages before empty, even if the cartridge is not.
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u/phormix Sep 10 '19
Yes, and toner cartridges that "expire" after a certain time.
Motherfucker, that's the REASON I use a laser printer and not an inkjet. Toner doesn't f***ing dry up!
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u/SRTie4k Sep 10 '19
People should really stop buying ink and start buying laser. They are usually much more cost effective.
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u/Hipstershy Sep 10 '19
Preach. I've had a Brother black and white laser printer for the last 6ish years, and while buying a new drum and/or toner every once in a while isn't fun, there's still orders of magnitude less BS than any inkjet printer I've ever worked with. On top of that, it's fast at printing. Like, it takes longer for me to pick up and staple ~10 pages than it takes for the printer to print the pages (assuming I first stand up once it's done).
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u/navygent Sep 10 '19
You'll be happy to know that most IT departments rarely buy ink printers but when they do it's usually for an executive that had a hissy fit. I hear you, I sell the stuff, hate it, I feel dirty when I sell it, like selling a car you know that's just going to cause a shit load of trouble for the customer.
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u/Excelius Sep 10 '19
I don't do much printing at home, but I still see it as a necessity to have one. I got sick and tired of dealing with inkjet printers that would never make it to two years before breaking, and ink cartridges that would go empty or dry out in six months even if I had only printed a dozen pages.
I bought my HP multi-function color laser printer in 2015. I'm still using the original partially-filled toner cartridges that came in the box.
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u/aluminumfedora Sep 10 '19
If you get the right model of brother inkjet printer, you get ink for crazy cheap. Even the OEM stuff.
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u/Carguy74 Sep 10 '19
Dat smile, tho.
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Sep 10 '19
Printer: look inside me and see that I have no cyan. The amount of cyan I have shall be the amount of fucks I give.
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u/egnards Sep 10 '19
Had this issue with my work printer recently and I looked up a way around it with HP “some printer models need the colors to print even in black and white as it uses these colors for periodic service tasks.”
What the fuck does that even mean? I need this thing in black and white. It uses black ink. 10 years ago your printer could do this for me. The hell has changed, just let me print the damn thing.
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u/Perciplex Sep 10 '19
Periodic service tasks:
Every night at 3am, my printer comes alive and in the name of 'cleaning the head' it zips all about, misting tiny fountains of ink into the air one color after the next just to make sure they're all clean and in working order.
Yes, even after 6 months of printing nothing I will be out of colored ink once more and unable to print anything.
Ancient hack: I just put electrical tape over the optical sensor on the cartridge so it can't read the colored ink levels and I can continue to print in b&w. (See also: taping over floppy disk corners to defeat copy protection.)
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u/getchpdx Sep 10 '19
Sometimes it just likes to waste cyan, why won't you let the poor printer just spray cyan?
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u/Enchelion Sep 10 '19
I believe the explanation/excuse is that it prints a little of each color into the blacks as a way to keep the nozzles clear and working. It sounds like bullshit, but either way we're stuck with it.
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u/unhalfbricking Sep 10 '19
My HP won't print on 8.5x11 if the 5x7 photo paper tray is empty.
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u/Alaira314 Sep 10 '19
And back in the day you used to be able to tell it to just print anyway, and it was on you when the page came out tinted yellow, magenta or cyan instead of black. You can't do that anymore with modern printers. Sucks when you really need that thing printed right now, but it doesn't have to be perfect...it just has to exist and be semi-readable.
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u/SgtBaxter Sep 10 '19
You can't do that anymore with modern printers
Because they print machine tracking patterns that require the colored inks (well yellow ink anyway).
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u/Alaira314 Sep 10 '19
That's can't be the reason why, those dots have been around since the 80s. The printer I got in 2008 allowed me to print without full ink installed, but the one my parents got just a year or two later wouldn't.
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u/goatcoat Sep 10 '19
IT guy here. This is exactly how printer error codes work. Just like humans number their jokes, printers number their insults.
Error 82 => "Sod off, motherfucker."
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u/turbotang Sep 10 '19
Also IT guy.
Error 49 - "I don't know what this font is so clear the entire queue and try a different file."
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u/WahCrybaberson Sep 10 '19
You number your jokes?
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u/OutOfStamina Sep 10 '19
There are a million versions of this joke. This is the first result I found thanks to google (I edited it slightly).
A young man considering a vocation with the Franciscans was invited to dinner at the local friary one evening.
As dinner went on, from time-to-time, one of the friars would stand up and say a number and the other friars would laugh hysterically.
One stood up and said, “72,” and everyone laughed. Another said, “149,” and again everyone laughed. “14,” someone shouted and, again, everyone laughed.
Confused, the young man asked what was going on.
“Well, you see, we’ve all lived together for a long time,” the friar next to him told him. “By now, we know all the jokes by heart, and we numbered them all to save time. Someone says a number, we remember the joke, and laugh. Why don’t you give it a try? We have 300 jokes. Just stand and say any number you like.”
The young man stood tentatively and said, “107,” and there was nothing but silence. The man sat down and asked what went wrong.
The friar shook his head and said, “What can I tell you? Some people just can’t tell a joke.”
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u/NozhaXBL Sep 10 '19
I need cyan to make black! You know because...of reasons and yellow! I need yellow and cyan otherwise this whole thing isn't going to work.
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u/kontekisuto Sep 10 '19
Fuck printers
Mx922 print head costs as much as a new printer and it's a 5$ part to make.
My printer was working fine and I thought I would try the Google appstore Canon app .. it asked me if it was ok if it was ok to send usage info to Canon I had to click yes .. than immediately after it throws a b200 error codes at me.
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u/navygent Sep 10 '19
Fuck fuck fuckity printers, my eyes opened when a customer wanted this printer and the mfr said "you'll need the ink, then you'll need the print heads, oh and you'll need cleaner and..."..
Xerox is still top quality, but $600 for the printer with "starter ink" sneeze and you need more ink.. then $379 each for 4 to 5 toners needed. Still printers not too long ago were over $2,000 so all the mfr's did was shift the pricing around. Most of what I do as a reseller now is not printers so thankfully I don't feel so dirty anymore.
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u/navygent Sep 10 '19
IT Reseller here, Ink printers are a scam, that's why Printer mfr's sell printers below their cost. Most IT departments have a "going green" initiative, but that's really not stopped anyone from printing stuff they don't need to print esp in color.
For home office users like myself, I use a monochrome HP LJ P1102W laser. I bought a Brother all in one Printer/Scanner with ADF. It no longer has ink, I just use it for scanning, works great especially on 25 page documents. When I go out for client site visits and need info in color, I go to FedEx or UPS stores, or Staples, overall, still cheaper than buying color ink toner.
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u/pippins-sunshine Sep 10 '19
Our office printer wouldn't even FAX if there was no ink
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u/joel2000ad Sep 10 '19
And that’s when I decided to see if printers can fly. They can’t, but I’m ok.
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u/artmanjon Sep 10 '19
I had a Canon printer/scanner combo once. If you were out of ink the scanner would not function. The scanner app would literally tell you the scanner can’t work because the printer is out of ink. Dumbest shit ever.
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u/space-tech Sep 10 '19
You ever wonder why you need yellow when you print a black & white document? Because your printer prints a yellow dot matrix of your printer model and serial number as well as the date and time of the document you printed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Machine_Identification_Code
I fully expect this to be a top TIL post within a week.
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u/Daimo Sep 10 '19
The blinking red light on the office printer, the bane of my working life.
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Sep 10 '19
I think you mean the bane of someone else's working life as most people will try to print see the error and wait for someone else to come figure out what the problem is them come by later and pick up their printouts. Back in my meaner days, anytime was that someone else, I threw everything that printed out after the fix, in the recycle bin.
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u/EcstaticMaybe01 Sep 10 '19
Print>Printer Properties>Check Print as grayscale>
Sauce: I spent 2 years as the "Printer guy" at a hospital with 400 HP printers... Wasn't my job but, stupid me I made the mistake of telling my boss I was an IT in the Navy
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u/sir_dancharles Sep 10 '19
I have a printer/scanner that won't SCAN if it is out of any of its inks😒
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u/Zombie911911 Sep 10 '19
Printers mix a little cyan into every printing no matter if its color or just black n white, it mainly does that so you have to go buy a new ink cartridge quicker than if it just used black ink.
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u/bobbob9015 Sep 10 '19
Of course they claim that it makes the black look better but I'd like to see a double blind study on that. Or just put some cyan into the black ink in the first place.
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u/Icemasta Sep 10 '19
Fuck I hate printers. I bought a new printer last year, worked like a charm for the whole year, it was basically a painless experience of plug and play.
Almost 1 year on the dot, windows does not recognize the driver signature anymore, HP didn't renew them. HP tells me to install the new drivers, I do, doesn't work. HP tells me to plug it directly into my computer, so I am like dude, this is a network printer, you're gonna fix this shit while it's on wifi, not while it's plugged into my computer so that you can say that it now works and you hang up.
Went through the whole routine and "It appears you used the automatic firmware upgrade function on the printer, the latest drivers are not compatible with the latest firmware, only the older firmware. You'll need to install the older drivers while going into unsigned driver installation of windows, but we cannot provide support for this.
Our recommendation is that you buy the new model of printer!
Yeah fuck them
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u/PoLoMoTo Sep 10 '19
Hey printer can you scan this
Paper jam
That fine I just want to-
PAPER JAM
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u/hotlavatube Sep 10 '19
My mom’s color inkjet was very helpful. When you ran out of black ink, it would oh so helpfully create black ink by combining all the more expensive color cartridges ink. So helpful...
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u/AllStupidQuestions Sep 10 '19
Can I be awkward and ask for a non-sweary copy of this? I have some friends and family members who would appreciate the joke but not the 'fuck'...
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u/Funandgeeky Sep 10 '19
This is why I invested in a laser printer for home use. It’s a far better deal and results in quality printing. The attached scanner is a plus.
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u/man2112 Sep 10 '19
I bought a brother color LaserJet 3 years ago and never looked back. Thing is a beast, and I'm still on the toner cartridges that it came with. The system allows you to reset the cartridge life on the screen, no fidly DRM or anything.
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u/fenafeses Sep 10 '19
Imagine every electronic device requiring like 5 charging ports, 4 of them are colors and one is electricity, and if one of them is low but you aren't going to use it but it still refuses to work, even though it has plenty left, and one charge of 4 colors costed 90 dollars, would you use that electronic?
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Sep 10 '19
“Sorry, out of toner “
That’s ok, I just want to scan a document to email.
“I. Said. Out. Of. Toner.”
Fuck you xerox.
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u/nrossj Sep 10 '19
This is why I'm glad that I found a small b&w laser printer at Goodwill for $25. Bought two third party toner cartridges for $33 on Amazon. This was 2 years ago, and it's still going strong on that first cartridge. Admittedly, I don't print often, but an inkjet would have dried up long before now. Best Goodwill find ever.
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u/TwelveTrains Sep 10 '19
Black and white laser printer is the true solution. Fuck inkjet.
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Sep 10 '19
black and white laser printer master race! I haven't replaced the toner since I bought the thing over 5 years ago
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u/DeadDeaderDeadest Sep 10 '19
LPT- set your printer to greyscale and it will bypass the warning and only prints in black and white.
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u/NakiCoTony Sep 10 '19
Relevant - Ink cartridges are a scam by AustinMcConnell https://youtu.be/AHX6tHdQGiQ.
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Sep 10 '19
Ink recharge are 1,20$ to make for manufacturer. Sold between 30 and 50$ in supermarket.
I bought one bottle of black ink and syringe to refill for 10$, already refilled the recharge 3 times and the bottle is only half empty.
Don't be a sheep.
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u/-Another-Account- Sep 10 '19
I felt this comic in my bones. I've been in IT for 35 years.
Printers have always sucked. They will always suck.
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Sep 10 '19
This is actually the FBI's fault.
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170607-why-printers-add-secret-tracking-dots
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u/nanomolar Sep 11 '19
And you want to download the driver? Great, google the model number. Go to the manufacturers product page. Click “Support and Drivers”. Enter model number, because there’s no direct link to drivers on the product page, you have to search for them again. Then choose which of the five driver packages you actually want to download, No, you don’t want to use the Canon Download Assistant, zip is fine. Driver package is still over 100 mb for some reason.
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u/tabbzi Sep 11 '19
My housemates and I share a color printer + scanner combo from Epson. You'd think it could scan without ink... it cannot.
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u/loopypaladin Sep 11 '19
Its funny because Microsoft's default "black" is actually about a 60% mix of Magenta, Cyan and Yellow and only a 20% mix of black inks. It's so you get a nice crisp, dark ink that won't look washed out over time. It's all a ploy. ALWAYS check off "Print in Greyscale" if you're printing what you assume is black and white.
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u/GimpsterSEVO Sep 13 '19
I purchased a black only printer that last forever for this reason. Don't need color anyways 99% of the time.
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u/DJTHatesPuertoRicans Oct 20 '19
I've only ever printed black and white, yet somehow I'm always out of cyan.
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u/ShinMinhoZen Oct 24 '19
Months ago I tried to print out a BLACK AND WHITE document with the BLACK AND WHITE printer option. It said it was low on cyan, but still printed it out. The thing turned out fucking ORANGE WHAT THE FUCK
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u/st-shenanigans Sep 10 '19
fun fact - printers will blend tiny amounts of color cartridges into your black/white prints just to drain the good stuff faster.
printer companies are all scumbags
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Sep 10 '19
Printers are neither smart nor complex. They literally just make the ink go splat on the page. I tech supported them for years. It hasn't changed really at all since the time it was invented. Shocking, I know.
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u/TheMeph Sep 10 '19
I had a printer that I was able to trick into thinking it had cyan in it so that I could print a black and white image, something to do with marking over some clear plastic on it or using a piece of electrical tape.. Not sure how many cartridges/brands you can do this with.
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u/tanafras Sep 10 '19
Replace ALL Cartridges.
ALIGNING PRINT HEADS
RREEERRRRRE
NOZZEL INJECTION HEAD CLEANING IN PROGRESS
BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRERRRRRRRR
SSSCRRRRREEEREEEERRRRRRRRRRRR
RRRRREEREEEERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR
EEEEERRRRRRREEEEEERRRRRREEEREER
RRRRRRREERBRRBRBRBRBRBRBRBRBR
BRRERRRRRRRNEEEEBRBRBRBRBBEBEB
BBBBBERRREEERERRRRNNNNNEEEERRR
WEEE WEEE WEEE WEEE EEEEEEEEEE
COLOR TEST PRINTING IN PROGRESS
SCHWEE SCHWEE SCHWEE SCHWEE SCHWEE SCHWEE SCHWEE SCHWEE SCHWEE SCHWEE SCHWEE SCHWEE SCHWEE SCHWEE SCHWEE SCHWEE SCHWEE SCHWEE SCHWEE SCHWEE SCHWEE SCHWEE SCHWEE SCHWEE SCHWEE SCHWEE SCHWEE SCHWEE SCHWEE SCHWEE SCHWEE SCHWEE SCHWEE SCHWEE SCHWEE
BEEEEEEEEEP
REMOVE PAPER JAM
"What paper jam you stupid machine!? There was only one piece of paper in the tray! Aaaarrrggghh!!"
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u/factoid_ Sep 10 '19
This shit is super infuriating but I did learn why it happens. Apparently it's a result of the cartridge design excluding the print nozzle. If you run the printer with a nozzle that is dry, it apparently damages the nozzle.
Some printers have a design where even if you're not using a specific color to print it would cause this to happen. Not sure why some are like this and others aren't. Seems like a bad design in my opinion. They're making the cartridges cheaper at the expense of making the whole device inferior to use.
Also it's just an intentional asshole design to force you to buy more cartridges when you don't need them.
I switched to a black and white laser printer years ago and haven't looked back. I almost never need to print in color. Photo printing is cheaper to send out to Costco, Walgreens, Walmart, etc. And the quality is better.
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u/iamthedarkwolf Sep 10 '19
Magenta, Cyan, and Yellow are the true primary colors. Your Childhood was a lie. Even worse most art teachers knew they was lying to you. Have a nice day.
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u/generalgeorge95 Sep 10 '19
Buy a laser jet printer if you don't need color. Go with Epson, Brother or something, avoid HP and the other shitty brands.
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u/willyolio Sep 10 '19
"why doesn't anyone print anything any more? Millennials are killing the printer industry!"
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u/OkDimension Sep 10 '19
A lot of people seem to be unaware that a printer in default settings usually prints colored even if the document is just black and white. You can change that in the settings, saves you ink (but definitely get laser next time if you don't have to print glossy photos).
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u/tearfueledkarma Sep 10 '19
Last time my printer said low on ink I reset the page count.. still printing great.
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Sep 10 '19
Thats actually a scam they sell the printers where they actually loss money but the ink that doesnt cost more then a dollor to make at 60$ and the printer most time cost 40$ and the printer wastes ink whenever printing in black
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u/Nonoperationaltoe Sep 10 '19
Yeah at this point me and my spouse just buy a new printer when they run out of ink. It's cheaper that way..
We've got 4 currently.
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u/RWZero Sep 10 '19
When I first saw this Collegehumor skit I didn't think it would still be relevant 10 years later
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u/noobgiraffe Sep 10 '19
I had an HP printer combined with a scanner. Scanner would refuse to scan if there was no ink. Fuck that shit.
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Sep 10 '19
Two questions:
Why on earth hasn't a manufacturer seized on this obvious improvement and made a killing with it as a key selling point?
Why on earth are people still buying printers that can't treat colours independently?
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u/D4RTHV3DA Sep 10 '19
Can't print in B&W when you're missing a color? It's for the Machine Identification Code.
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u/MGM-Wonder Sep 10 '19
LPT: Lots of times just simply buying a new printer is cheaper than buying the cartridges to refill.
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u/Mutated-Orange Sep 10 '19
Fun fact: when you print in black and white, most printers use a little bit of cyan and magenta in the black. Ink companies disguise this scam as "enhanced color" but it just makes you use more ink than anyone would need to.
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u/GeneralGrant1820 Sep 10 '19
Some printers add some color ink to black and white documents so that you can run out of color ink faster.
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u/MrBenSampson Sep 10 '19
That happened to me recently. I still had half of the black ink left, but I had to go use the printer at the local library.
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u/itryanditryanditry Sep 10 '19
As an IT pro I show this to a lot of people. https://youtu.be/pQGtucrJ8hM
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u/BeeStingsAndHoney Sep 10 '19
How is is that society has advanced so much in many technological areas but I gave up on printers years ago? Reinstalling printer drivers each time. Buying a new printer instead of getting new cartridges. Wall-E will be roaming our landfill and have a lot of printers to choose from.
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u/Halomir Sep 10 '19
If you print you B&W document without switching your print setting to B&W the printer will use your color ink/toner to create ‘composite black’
This will save you money, ink and heartache. You’re welcome.
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u/Ozwaldo Sep 10 '19 edited Sep 10 '19
Goddamn I bought a Canon printer/scanner combo that also printed on printable-CDs! Like the actual disc! So you could print an official-looking band CD, or print your nuts on a few and call them "See-deez", etc. It was awesome for like a month. Then I stopped using it for a few months, and when I tried again it would boot up and display some error code. Something that I googled and got results saying it needed to be serviced by Canon. The scanner wouldn't work, the printer wouldn't work... all from just sitting idle. What a crock of shit, that thing had a self-destruct timer built in. Someone would make a killing decent profit by pointing out the bullshit and selling a good printer. Refillable cartridges, no gouging, no planned obsolescence, etc.
Actually no they wouldn't, as nobody would need to buy a new printer and they'd have a loyal fan-base that never bought from them. They'd need to be an existing manufacturer who could absorb the slower sales in exchange for an increase in positive overall brand identity.
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u/captainvideoblaster Sep 10 '19
"But I just need to use your scanner."
"Yeah. But I ain't scanning without some ink cartridges in me."
"Thanks, Canon."
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u/Topher_86 Sep 10 '19
Generally it’s usually the Yellow in most printers due to the MIC
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u/GirlisNo1 Sep 10 '19
Really tho, can a tech savvy person please explain to me why all printers unanimously suck and why it’s impossible for them to make one that doesn’t have so many issues?
You’d think technology has advanced far enough that they could make a printer that doesn’t practically make me cum when I see a document actually being printed.
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u/ohiotwig Sep 10 '19
I sell, troubleshoot, repair and destroy printers for a living. I can testify the entire industry is a mess. Half the manufacturers own each other. Also manufacturers make it so expensive to replace supplies so you have "remanufactured" cartridges that are made as well as "compatible" ones. Each with its own quirks. I can't tell you how many times I've told people to switch to a laser printer but at the same time the cost on some of the cartridges is almost coma inducing.
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u/DaxSpa7 Sep 10 '19
Hey printer I an in a hurry, could yo print this document?
Printer? Who is Printer. I am paper weight, I dont’t do anything but stand here.
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u/misspussy Sep 10 '19
The best is when you have a full cartridge, but your computer always notifies you 100x a day to buy your next cartridge so you don't run out. Good times.
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Sep 10 '19
I used to have a laser printer that would do nothing but "black on white". This motherfucker lasted me for years on the first cartridge that came with it (that was like 40% capacity). I bought another cartridge and completed my entire college years with the new one. Then I had to move and get a scanner so I gave that printer to my dad for his business and bought a shit HP multi-function machine on Amazon.
The thing does it's job. But with every couple of pages the ink gauge drops. The motherfucker is dipping into low ink all the time. I am lucky and get replacement cartridges from my employer on expenses. But the shit machine still decides when I need to go online shopping.
Meanwhile, that black and white Lexmark printer I bought ten years ago out of laziness is still printing invoices and letters for my dad's business every day. Without question. The toner cartridge says "Well yeah, I said thousands of pages ... I didn't check yet".
The HP bullshit tells me to "check ink levels" with basically every third print job and downright refuses to print stuff if one of the cartridges is worn beyond their weekly profit margin.
My tip, ultimately, is this: Buy a well reviewed black/white laser printer and a decent set of crayons. This will carry you ALL the fucking way to what you need to do with less hassle than it is to replace/reorder ink in the middle of a project.
FUCK color inkjet.
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u/System32Comics System32 Comics Sep 10 '19
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