10 Ways Print Your Own Masters Can Bond With Their Printer

by Chelsea Camper | Last Updated December 30, 2015

When you print your own forms you need to know your printer; its strengths, weaknesses, what the error codes mean, etc. Knowing how your printer handles certain jobs can help you make the decision on whether or not to use it for a certain job.

If you know Printer A (let’s call it Henry) is an inkjet and thus can’t print on glossy paper, you can give the glossy print job to Printer B (let’s call it Ricoh) who is a nice laser printer. Next job a high detail, full color photograph? Henry would probably be better suited for the job than Ricoh.

Let’s look at a few ways you as a Print Your Own Master can bond with your printer.

1. Understand What Will Cause an Issue

Some printers don’t handle slick paper very well and will cause a paper jam. If you know that to be true for your Printer A, maybe you should choose Printer B to print on the slick paper. However, if you know that none of your printers do very well with slick paper, maybe you should look for some paper that isn’t quite so slick.

2. Figure Out What Does What Together

There are some settings that will make the printer go slower, some will make it print faster, and others that will cause your printer to leave blotches of ink or toner all over your beautiful print job. Test out your printer’s setting on scrap paper so that you can understand what you’re doing when you change certain settings.

3. Try New Paper & Paper Type Settings as a Team

When you’re trying a new paper or paper type setting don’t expect perfection the first time. Test the new paper or setting with several different options until you get exactly what you want. By testing various settings and paper types you can start to get a better understanding of what your printer can and can’t handle.

4. Stay Healthy Together

Just as you need to stay healthy your printer does too. Make sure you have some extra ink on hand for when your ink runs out. Always have a back up!

When you start running low on ink, even if you have a cartridge to replace the current one, go ahead and order another cartridge. That way by the time your current one has run out and you’ve replaced it, you’ll have a back up for the replacement.

Also keep a back up of any important parts of your printer than need to be changed every once in a while (photo conductor unit, toner drum, etc.).

5. Stay Rested Together

When you’re running off of little to no sleep, you don’t always function your best. You have a hundred and three different things running through your head, you’re cranky, and you just want to go to bed. Your printer needs to rest as well.

Turn it off over the weekend or even every night. Not only will this help save power but it will also help clear out any loose processes.

6. Be A Good Listener

When your printer gives you an error code, listen to it! If you don’t understand what the code means you can usually look it up in the manual or online. Can’t find it in either of those two places? You can always call your IT Guy or get in touch with your printer’s manufacturer.

7. Stay in Contact with Each Other

Most printers will alert you with a message on the computer if something’s wrong, but sometimes the alert gets over looked. Have your printer on your desk with you or in an adjacent room so you can hear when it stops printing.

There’s little worse than sending a large print job to your printer, waiting an hour thinking that everything is printing just fine, then finding out that it has only printed 10% of the job because of a paper jam or not enough paper.

8. Give Your Printer Regular Checkups

Just as you need to go to the doctor and dentist for regular check ups, you should do some regular maintenance on your printer. A lot of basic maintenance can be done by you, but if you have an expensive, complicated, highly involved printer, you should consider calling your printer manufacturer to do the maintenance.

Some printers might just need their drums wiped down with a dry paper towel, others might need the corona wire cleaned, and still others might only need to have their printer head realigned. Most of these things can be done by you.

9. Divide Chores Evenly

Do you have multiple printers? Make sure you’re not sending all of your print jobs to just one printer. Figure out what each printer is good at and send them print jobs that compliment what they do well.

Send your glossy print jobs through the laser printer and your high-detail, full color photograph postcards through your inkjet printer.

10. Take Notes About What You’ve Learned Together

Have you just wrapped up a particularly troubling print job or found the greatest setting for your postcards? Write it down! You’re busy, you’re doing too many things at once, you might forget what that setting was!

Write down your setting notes on a scrap piece of paper and tape it up somewhere. Tape it beside your printer or on your desk somewhere so you know exactly where to find it next time.

How else can you bond with your printer?

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