The printer installation services guide is how to guide for the most common small office network environment.  Many offices have an on-going relationship with a copier/printer maintenance service that leases a machine.  The manufacturer of the printer sometimes defer to them for your support.   It may cost you some money per visit so it may be worth your while to understand the printer installation services for your particular setup.  You’re an all-star if you are able to follow and complete this setup guide:

Resources:

Canon MX Printer Setup

Printer Setup – Scan to Email Functionality

Business Network Printer Setup Below…

 

First, plan your setup and we will deliver plenty of printer installation services scenarios as more situations come up.

• Know your drivers
• Get familiar with run line commands like “printmanagement.msc” and “control printers” (Devices and Printers)
  
• PCL is for text documents
• PS is for graphics
• Does your printer have a built-in IP based menu console?
  • “Scenario one” is for you if you don’t need the full software package.  Grab the IP address of the printer and try to connect to the console to confirm.
• My printer lacks a built-in IP based GUI
  • Not many printers on the market have this option.  The only one I recommend is the Canon MX series.  “Scenario Two” covers the steps for installation.
• Avoid installing full blown software when possible. Full blown or bloated software is required for 80% of Home Office printer solutions
• Grab your driver
  • Common Google querys are printer_name and drivers. Pay attention to the URL the search engine redirects you.  Ie hp.com for HP products and Cannon.com for Cannon
  • Alternately, the driver is placed on the file server if it is in an office environment if whoever is administrating it is a good Network IT administrator. Ie \\server_name\office_resource\IT\printer
• Who’s your print server? Do you have one?
  • Very small office environments tend to not utilize a server. Servers can be an actual Windows Server or a Windows client posing as a Windows Server
• Grab the network info of the printer. You will need this information when there is no file server.  Alternately, grab the network info of the print server.
  • Hostname
  • IP address

Printer Installation Services Guide – Scenario One

 

In this scenario, we play out a very common setup in a user environment that is under 20 users.  The users are all directly connected to a leased copier with an IP of 172.16.1.239.  The IT guy is blessed to have the drivers already located on the file server.  He simply needs to “add printer” from “devices and printers” in “control panel”.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Select “add a local printer”

• Create new port, select standard TCP/IP Port if the IP address has never been created before.
• Use existing port if the IP is already listed as a port.

Manually add drivers.  Select the folder path of the driver.   Note:  This step may vary depending on if you need PCL or PS

 

 

 

 

 

 

Example:  R:\IT & Operations\Printer\Driver\C353_Series_Win8_PCL_PS_FAX_v66x0\Driver\Drivers\PCL\EN\Win_x64

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Do not share printer unless it the workstation is acting as a print server

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Finally, some printer/MFP are set to account for prints per user.  There’s a special adjustment made in the printer properties under “settings” to reflect that.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Perform a test print before making the new printer default.  Enter in the password for the printer to print.

 

 

 

 

 

Modifying Print Settings

• Series PCL is currently truer to color than Series PS, but the resolution (DPI) on PCL is lower.
• You can play around with the Series PS and Series PCL driver settings (as listed below) to increase the quality of prints.
• Driver settings to adjust print quality:
  • Print any document à Print Window à Choose Series PS or PCL à Properties à Quality Tab à
    • Quality Adjustment
      • Change “Simple” to Detail.  Choose “Photo” to increase the DPI.
      • Select the “Color Balance” tab and reduce Magenta as needed.
      • Select the “Color Matching” tab and try changing the “Type” to Photo.
    • Pattern
      • Change from “Coarse” to “Fine”
    • Image Compression
      • Change “Maximum Compression” to “Best Quality”
• Any increase in quality or DPI will also increase the time to spool and print.  Try out different settings to strike a good balance between quality and print time.
• After you’ve experimented with the printer settings, let your printer support representative know what PCL/PS options work best, and he’ll set them up as the defaults.

Printer Installation Services Guide – Scenario Two

In this scenario, we break down a Canon MX 512 most commonly used in a home office environment.

Printer Installation Services Guide Summary

Not all printer installation services are equal.  In fact, they are very different and sometimes cumbersome but you can solve anything if you have your baseline skills to work with.