laser vs. inkjet printers replies (long)

[ammons at creighton.edu]

Thanks again to everyone. I tried to cut out commented material from 
earlier posts to condense this message. 


*****
From:             Russ Jury <jury at plains.nodak.edu>
We use HP LaserJet 5N printers to service our public clients (using 
Novell 4.1 and windows 95)  They work very well although they haven't 
been running very long.  They have a network card pre-installed, so all 
there is to do is plug it in and run a little software from your netware 
administering client.  We also run a HP 5SiMX, which is 24 ppm and 
postscript, but it probably would be overkill for your application...


*****
From:             "Thomas Dowling" <tdowling at ohiolink.edu>
I can't recommend any make or model, but I can give some general advice
(vicariously gleaned from watching some of our members discover it the
hard way).  Don't build a new printing environment solely around your
current requirements.  By way of example, we have several databases that
are adding ASCII full text of journal articles; okay, no crisis, a dot
matrix or ink jet printer can handle that, if slowly.  But we also just
opened up a service that provides 170+ journals in full text/full image as
PDF files.  A couple of very patient people actually tried printing one of
them on a dot-matrix printer a couple months ago--I haven't heard if it's
finished yet.

Second, if you're thinking of charging for printing, keep a close eye on
any web services you may be deploying.  We recently rolled out a web
interface to some of our databases that, like its vt100 counterpart, only
displays one record at a time.  Well, with a terminal printing to a d-m
printer with tractor feed, this works.  With a web browser and/or a shared
printer, you'll get a formfeed with each record, which (at some of our
locations) means a dime per citation.  Welcome back to school, kids.


*****
From:             "DEIRDRE F. WOODWARD" <4CTY_DEIRDRE at 4cty.org>
Hi!  I *hate* HPLaserjets.  They are by far the worst printer I have dealt
with.  The paper is hard to refill and when there is a printer error I can
never figure out what the problem is.  Perhaps it's just me, and others
have no probls with HP, but I will never buy an HP again.  They used to be
excellent. I remember using one in 1988 that was fast, loaded envelopes,
was easy to change the paper, never had a problem.  The ones we have now
-- HP 4, 4L, and a color printer, have all caused me major headaches.

I have a canon bubblejet 200e at home which has never caused me a problem.
I love it.  The only drawbacks are sometimes the ink is too wet and
smears, and I can't get a really nice print.  I printed my wedding
invitations in it and they looked terrible.  I used the HP and they looked
fabulous.

SO, for maintenence, HP laserjet bad, Canon bubblejet good.
So excellent perfect printing, HP laserjet good, canon bubblejet not as
good.


*****
From:             gshultz at post.cis.smu.edu (Gary Shultz)
We use lasers in my office, where there are about six people working off
the same machine. I realize that is not a library setting, but ours is a
university news and information operation which means the laser is in
constant use.  We have had good luck with Apple brands and have tended to
buy the industrial strength models.

The draw back to lasers is the lack of color.  If you are wanting to
produce color graphics, etc., then the ink jet may be the way to go. If
you don't need color -- and have the money -- the lasers seem to be low
maintenance.  (I have an HP ink jet at home and like it very much.)

Another piece of advice: When you are shopping around for printers, be
sure to ask about the cost of the replacement cartridges and how many
pages you get per cartridge. The cartridges are not cheap, and you could
find yourself in very big trouble if you get a printer from a company that
may not be around for a while. Also avoid models that are being phased
out, even if they are cheaper.

As for recycling. That is highly commendable. We tried it for a while,
including shelling out the money for a separate tray to hold only the
recyclable paper. We had some problems with the laser printer when we did
that, and the people handling our maintenance said they thought some of
the ink (or whatever it is) on the backside of the paper was "drifting"
off and generally making the inside dirty. So, we gave up on that and went
to straight recycling of all paper.


*****
From:             "Wilfred [Bill] Drew" <drewwe at snymorva.cs.snymor.edu>

... replies to Diedre Woodward's post 

I must disagree with great vehemence (spelling ? ;-)) about HP
Laserjets.  We purchased an HP Laserjet 5P several months ago.  It works
extremely well, produces excellent quality printing of text and images. 
Paper loads from the front just by sliding the tray in and out. 
Paperjams are infrequent.  It is running off a Windows NT server and
also off of Appletalk for our directr's Mac (the rest of us use real
computers -- just joking!!).  It has also been set up to receive print
requests from our VAX via the Windows NT server.  The only problems have
been when the server is running real slow.  We also found we couldn't
load the software on my Windows for Workgroups machine which is why it
is on an NT in Computer Services.

My brother-in-law uses a HP Laserjet in his print shop.  He has been
using the same printer for over 8 years now.  The only maintenance has
been replacing cartridges.  Still works great even with his new pentium
machine.


*****
From:             John Creech <jcreech at redshift.com>

... replies to Bill Drew's reply to Diedre Woodward

I'm in; deal the cards.  I'm with Bill.  We've had an HP 4L at home
since 8/93 and have never had any problems.  Oh, except sometimes they
run out of paper and that black stuff in the funny cartridges.  


*****
From:             "Christopher A. Poterala" <potsie at alumni.sils.umich.edu>
I can't stress this enough....GO WITH THE NETWORKED LASER PRINTER!!!!
You will have:
One printer to maintain.
No messy ink jet cartridges staining your clothes.
The ability for patrons to continue working while their information is 
printing out.
Why:
Inkjets are expensive to maintain, especially when you start changing 
those $25 cartridges every couple of weeks.  
I don't really think inkjets are up the abuse a laser printer can take.


*****
Send reply to:    erkki.poyhonen at ntc.nokia.com

...my original post

Well, sure you can use that file server to centralise your printing also.

...my original post

I have used once printed papers on some very good laser printers (HP
LaserJet III, some QMS makes and one Canon). I Liked the HP and bought
one for the home also. But a problem in each of these is that re-using
sheets of paper sets some demands for your handling of papers and your
maintenance of the printers.

First, papers ina recycling bin can very easily get wrinkled (and
lasers don't like wrinkled papers any more than copiers do) so it is
better to provide boxes of correct size near the printer on the shelf
or on te counter, not to the floor. Correct size means that all sheets
get into neat stacks 'automatically' without wrinkling. Putting a big
bin on the floor means that papers are just tossed into that and it
also easily calls for other litter.

Another point is that an open bin collects dust much worse than a box
near the wall under a shelf, etc so that falling dust (more paper
handling means more dust) does not fall straight into the paper
box. Printed papers do allways emit much more dust ('normal dust',
sheet coating material and old color) into the printer than clean
stock. So keeping the printer clean can become a real issue if you are
going to use lots of recycled paper. I have experienced a threefold
increase in cleaning effort needed when I started to use once printed
sheets. Expect to clean corona wires and paper path at least weekly,
but YMMV according to sheet count.

...my original post

Well, if your users log in to machines, their names will appear on the
banner page of each printout. It might be so that users can collect
their own printouts? But if privacy is an issue, a service attendant
might take printouts and put them into sorting bins (a-e,f-i,...)
according to username and clearing each evening all remaining
printaouts into 'old prints' bin.

Also modern network printers make it quite easy to separate printouts
from each other (for example our HP LJ 4 Si does it well) by
offsetting each printout about an inch from previous one when dropping
pages into output bin.

Expect a considerable increase in printouts when moving from impact
printing to laser, at least for a while.

...my original post

How about letting users to use once printed sheets in the matrix
printers for free and charging for clean sheets used in the laser?

I would never go for multiple inkjets they demand almost the same
maintenance as a laser with higher price per page with lower quality
and you still need many of these. Laser is easiest in maintenance and
connectivity.


*****
From:             Edward Wigg <e-wigg at evanston.lib.il.us>

...my original post

You've just answered your own question; laser is the way to go. Also 5-10
ink jets cost considerably more than one fairly capable laser, enough more
that you would have money left over to add an extra large paper bin and
even a duplexing unit (start out by printing on both sides of the paper
and save the time you would have spent rescuing suitable scratch paper
from the recycling bin :-).

...my original post

If you have problems sorting printouts, with Netware you always have the
option of a banner page to separate the print jobs, though it goes against
your effort to save paper.


*****
From:             Janet Crum <crumj at ohsu.edu>
I faced a similar situation while working for my previous employer.  We
decided on a networked laser printer (a Hewlett Packard LaserJet 4si--the
big, fast, durable model).  We located it behind our circulation desk and
charged $.10/page for prints.  Since the 4si prints on both sides of the
paper, it ended up being a fairly good deal for the patrons and
dramatically reduced the amount of wasted paper in the library.  

We were on a Novell 3.11 network and configured the printer to generate a 
banner page at the beginning of each print job, giving the workstation
name from which it originated.  We then found it helpful to give our
workstations cutesy names (we named ours after Star Trek characters)
rather than numbers, so that patrons could more easily remember which
workstation they used.  Sorting and dispensing the print jobs was
sometimes a problem, if we were extremely busy and shorthanded, but
usually it was not that big of a deal.  The patrons seemed pleased with
the high quality output, and few complained about the fees.

Oh, one last thing about the 4si--we had very few maintenance problems
with it. Our major problems were paper jams caused by excessive humidity
in the building (wet paper doesn't do too well in any laser printer :-) ).
The toner cartridges lasted for many thousands of copies and were very
simple to replace.

As for what to do with the impact printers, we connected one or two of
ours to a standalone workstation running government depository CDs.  We
felt that charging for printing from these went against the spirit, if not
the letter, of the rules governing depository libraries.  We also used one
for a standalone business database which did not generate numerous or
large print jobs.

Overall, the staff was very pleased with networked printing.


*****
From:             Suzi Hayes <suzi at pbfreenet.seflin.lib.fl.us>
We tried replacing dot-matrix with inkjets. The injet cartridges are VERY 
portable. The first one was stolen within 24 hours of installing the 
printers. Laser cartridges cost more, but don't fit into a pocket. Just 
food thought while you are planning.


*****
From:             Michel BLANC <leucos at avignon.mm-soft.fr>

...my original post

Well, I worked in a place where we used shared HP4 Postscript laserprinter
whith Ethernet board. It had 2 paper bin so we, as users, could choose to
print on brand-new-paper for publications, or on recycled (backside) paper
for drafts. This was only our initiative as you can only choose the
printing bin when launching the print job. Aith some education, most of
the people used the printer right. The main problem was that PC's and Mac
were mixed. PC used PCL5 printing language and Mac used PS (postscipt).
The printer (at that time !! 2 years ago) was not switching from PS to
PCL5 correctly and missed some document.

...my original post

>From HP :

HP5SiMX : approx 1.5 cents/page (24 ppm), A4/A3 (*very* expensive ~$4000
in France)
HP4MV : approx 2 cents/page
etc...

For DJ printers, the cost ranges from 2.5 to 5cents/page; and for those,
you'd need to have a computer sharing it on the net (thus, always on)


*****
From:             "Mark Wilcox" <WILCOX at lis.unt.edu>
Believe it or not but going with the laser is the cheaper long-term 
when compared with individual ink jets, particular if you allow them 
to print without any monitoring.

Ink jets will produce nice prints quickly but they eat up ink almost 
as quick and at $20 bucks a cartridge if you have 4 printers and 
change their cartridges twice a month that's $160 a month for ink.

That's being conservative. 

So I think getting a laser and charging (avg. being 10 cents a page) 
is probably the better long term choice. Save on paper and long term 
cost.
*****


From:             katnagel at eznet.net (Kat Nagel/MasterWork)

... replies to Bill Drew's and John Creech's replies to Diedre Woodward

Now  -I-  say:
I love my HPLaserjet 4MP.  It has survived two cross-town moves, the
depradations of two aggressively curious cats, and prints several reams
per day with nary a whimper.

The paper and toner are much easier for me to change on the HP
than they are on the Epson, Okidata, and Apple printers I use at
client sites.  It prints on anything from 3x5 cards to full-page card
stock.

I  -did-  have a paper jam once.  I was using special coated paper for
layout work, and the temperature/humidity hit 93oF / 98%RH.
Everything  -else-  was turning gummy and sticking to anything it
touched, so I wasn't surprised when the paper wadded up.  So, if
I lived in a steamy climate and had to use coated paper, I'd buy
a different printer.

The only thing I'm truly dissatisfied with is the speed (4ppm for text;
longer for heavy-duty graphics).  When I upgrade, I will probably
get another HP.


*****
Shawn Ammon
ammons at creighton.edu
Reference Assistant, Health Sciences Library, Creighton University