Fast Tricks for Slow Printers

Saturday is usually my day for futzing in the garden. I know it's unfathomable, but I do attempt to avoid technology at least one day a week. It rarely works.

I can easily hear the phone ringing from inside the house, and usually it's my mother asking to speak with someone in the IS department (guess who). Last time she called about her laser printer. Seems the contraption wouldn't print more than half a page of her 2-page file before freezing up. No wonder. Her document was crammed with half the images in her 10,000-item clip-art collection. The printer had a hearty laugh and promptly went on strike.

I've dealt with a lot of Mom's printer problems over the years and have learned a couple of esoteric tricks that can help make a printer work faster. (For more ideas, see Hardware Tips.)

Color It Gray

The first trick involves color ink jet printers. A little disclaimer first. I've never liked color ink jets. Sure, they're cheaper than laser printers, but they're also slow and noisy and have a voracious appetite for ink cartridges. And unlike with lasers, you can't physically modify an ink jet to make it work faster (more on that in a sec).

But you can trick an ink jet into speeding up, and save a few bucks in the process: Turn off the color. Yep, it's that simple. See, unless color is crucial for your document, you're wasting ink and slowing down the printer if you output in color. Test it. Print a color page, then print it again in gray-scale. To do this, go to Start, Settings, Printers and right-click on the printer's icon. Go to Properties and find the tab that lets you change from color to gray-scale. Then print the page again. The file I tested took more than 2 minutes to print in color; the gray-scale version took only 30 seconds. When you do need color, simply change the settings back.

Beefing Up Your Laser

If you use a laser printer, you'll identify with Mom's problem. Whenever she tried to print files loaded with images, the document either wouldn't print at all or broke into multiple pages, with images on some, gibberish on others. I fixed this by increasing her laser's RAM. Increasing RAM not only sends documents flying out of your printer like bits through a DSL line, but it also lets you add more complex images to files without the printer rebelling.

Here's how it works: All laser printers come with memory--generally SIMMs, the same type of RAM your PC uses. (Ink jets don't use RAM; the document's held on the PC and spooled to the printer.) Unfortunately, manufacturers are stingy and include only 1MB or 2MB of RAM in their laser printers, just enough to print an average document. But you can supplement this with more RAM.

If you have an old PC lying around, open the case and you'll see two or more 1- by-4-inch memory chips on the motherboard. Just release the clips on either side of the SIMMs and transfer them to your printer. (But be careful not to touch any metal part of the SIMM; static electricity will destroy it.) That's how I upgraded my prehistoric Hewlett-Packard LaserJet 5P. In less than 5 minutes, I upped its memory from 2MB to 26MB by adding three old 8MB SIMMs. The most daunting part wasn't inserting the SIMMs--it was finding where to put them in the printer, something your manual can tell you. You can also buy RAM on the Web at about $18 per 8MB SIMM (try Pricewatch.com). Keep in mind that, depending on the laser you have, there is no guarantee you'll be able to add memory. Check your manual or the vendor's Web site. And be sure to unplug the printer before you fiddle with the RAM.

Printing Buddies

Okay, you've solved your own printing woes, but what happens when you send a document to a buddy who doesn't have the originating program--and can't print it out? Try EFax Messenger Plus, a brilliant free utility that works even with really obscure programs.

When you want to send a document to a friend, simply go to the print menu and choose Messenger Plus from the list of printers. The utility creates a file that you can then send to anyone via e-mail. When your friend receives it, a built-in printer-and-viewer feature lets them print the document exactly as you sent it.

Well, now that your printer's running smoothly, I've gotta go. Mom's paging the IS department about a scanner problem.