dacs.doc electric

WHEN HP RELEASED its latest affordable laserjet, the HP1100, I was in the market for a new printer and eager to try this one. The LaserJet 1100 replaces the previous HP LaserJet 6L printer, which was highly rated by a leading consumer magazine.

While the HP6L came with 1MB memory, expandable to 9MB, the HP1100 comes with 2MB memory, expandable to 18MB. If you print little more than text, you will probably not need more than 2MB. However, the more complex your printed page, the more printer memory is necessary to hold the information.

Here are some typical prices for the various HP1100 models, toner cartridges, and memory chips. (The HP Web site (www.hp.com) gives no prices.):

Item	Description	Supplier	Price
HP6L	Printer w/NO Printer cable		$399
HP1100	Printer w/ Printer cable		$399
HP1100xi	HP1100 w/ CD-ROM Trellix Web Software		$399
HP1100se	HP1100 w/ CD-ROM ExpressForms Value Pack		$399
HP1100A	HP1100 w/ Copier-Scanner C4221A		$499
HP1100	C4092A Replacement Toner Cartridge	CompUSA	$ 55
	16MB EDO DIMM memory for HP1100 by HP	CDW	$165
	16MB EDO DIMM memory for HP1100 by Viking	CDW	$ 52

To run the software, HP recommends your PC have at least 8MB RAM, preferably 16MB, and at least 20MB hard disk free to install it. The HP1100 carries a one-year warranty from date of purchase, which includes customer support and product repair assistance via a toll call to area code 208 (Idaho).

You can get the "HP FIRST" informational documents faxed to you by calling 1-800-333-1917, but of the hundreds of documents offered, very few refer to the HP1100.

The HP1100 supports such major operating systems as Windows 3.1, 95, 98, NT 4.0, OS/2, and DOS. It has a maximum rated speed of 8 ppm (pages per minute) but prints slower depending on how complex a page is. Available resolution is 300 or 600dpi.

The printer comes with 26 Intellifont typefaces. Printer drivers and all installable software come on a CD-ROM, and you can build diskettes from this to install on PCs with no CD-ROM drives.

The HP1100 has no ON/OFF power switch for the 110v model. While this is annoying the printer does have a "PowerSave" mode using only six watts, which it enters after it has been idle for 15 minutes. During printing, the HP1100 uses an average of 170 watts.

The HP1100 has two input feeds: The "paper input tray" holds about 125 sheets of 20 lb. paper or 10 envelopes. When adding sheets to the input tray, HP recommends removing the old input sheets and joggling them with the new sheets before inserting them as a group. The "single sheet paper input tray (priority feed)" holds one sheet of paper. Any input in the priority feed will be fed first, before the input from the larger feed. This enables you, for example, to manually add a different kind of paper for the title page of a report.

There are two output areas. When choosing the vertical output bin, the sheets stack in the same order as they are printed, with a maximum capacity of 100 sheets of 20 lb. paper. Choosing the horizontal output, which reduces the amount of bend on the document, the sheets stack in reverse order. This output is recommended for stiff stock, such as envelopes or transparencies.

HP claims you can print on transparencies and labels as well as on paper and envelopes. The printer supports a maximum document size of 8.5" X 14" and a minimum of 3" X 5".

Assembly and installation

I ordered the HP1100xi from the mail-order company PC Connection and was able to get free ground (UPS) shipping because of my PC Club membership. When the printer arrived, I opened the box and followed the pictorial directions on the box and the "Quick Reference Guide," wishing that HP had added more words to explain the pictures. For example, the strip that had to be removed to ready the toner cartridge was really about twice as long as the one pictured, so removing it made me feel I was tearing out too much.

I assembled the printer, plugged it in, and pressed the button. The test sheet printed fine with the current configuration settings. Then I cabled it to my PC and booted up. Windows 95 gave me the message: "New Hardware found. HP LaserJet 1100 Printer."

Choosing the default of installing the driver from the disk provided by the hardware manufacturer, I inserted the CD and was offered three options: 1) Install your HP LaserJet 1100 Software, 2) View the HP1100 On-line User's Guide, 3) Make your own diskette set of software.

When I chose to install the software Windows produced an error message that read: "A fatal exception 0E has occurred at 0028:BFF960FD. The current application will be terminated. Press any key to terminate the current application. Press CTRL+ALT+DEL again to restart your computer. You will lose any unsaved information in all applications."

I pressed CTRL+ATL+DEL to restart and got this message: "Install Shield Wizard will guide you through the setup process. Please wait while your computer shuts down." I did, but when nothing apparent happened for two minutes, I got tired of waiting and powered off my PC.

On rebooting my PC this time, I chose "Do not install a driver" and then opted to "View the HP1100 On-line User's Guide," which was displayed as a .PDF on my screen from the CD-ROM using Adobe Acrobat Reader. After this, when I again chose to install the software, the program finally showed me the message I wanted to see: "HP LaserJet 1100 Setup version 1.0.5.5."

"Setup Type" then gave me the option of a custom installation, which lets you choose which options to install. It said that if you perform a custom installation you can add more options at a later date by running the Setup program again. Here were my choices:

Required: HP LaserJet 1100 Printing System 1526KB
Optional: HP Font Smart* 2906KB
Online User Guide 2916KB

I installed the required Printing System and then the optional HP Font Smart, which is HP's proprietary font management program that makes it easy for you to manage True Type, Type 1, and bitmapped fonts. The program comes with 110 True Type fonts, all of which I chose to load. You can choose to load none of the fonts if you have space constraints, or just load the Printer Matching Fonts, which HP recommends for a minimal installation.

I chose to install all available fonts on the hard drive using the suggested default directory C:\HPFONTS, and then the Online User Guide using C:\HPDESK. The installation then recommended installing the Adobe Acrobat Reader so I could view the manual as a formatted document. I said "Yes," the default choice.

After that, I was invited to register via the Web to complete the setup and receive Web Print Smart with free support. Since I didn't want to let some strange program collecting information about me and forwarding it to a Web Site, I first disconnected my modem cable before clicking on "Web Registration." Note that there was no other choice available!

It took about two hours to install the hardware and software, and nearly another hour to print out 100 of the 183 pages in the User Guide using Acrobat. The printer delayed printing for almost five minutes before getting enough data to print 2 to 3 pages. Some people think that getting more printer memory would speed this up, but it doesn't. The last 83 pages seemed to print faster, probably due to fewer graphics.

While Acrobat was painfully printing the User Guide, I thought I'd try to connect with my ISP. This produced another error message, which said: "A fatal exception 0E has occurred at 0028:31363720." It seems like the "fatal exception 0E" problems are related to Acrobat. When I installed the same software on a PC with Acrobat already installed, I got no "fatal exception" errors.

Comments and Observations

• Leaving paper in the paper input tray causes the paper to warp.
• There is no easy way to get your fingers under the printer to move it.
• Opening the printer door to install the toner cartridge proved to be worrying. The door was very stiff, causing concern about breaking something by pulling too hard.
• The "Quick Reference Guide" depicts what looks like a user shaking the toner cartridge before installing it. The uninitiated may not understand the drawing or the reason for shaking the cartridge. One shakes the cartridge from side to side to distribute the toner.
• The life of the toner cartridge depends on how much toner is needed to print every page. Assuming a setting of Print Density = 3 and EconoMode = Off, an average of 5% coverage gives an HP cartridge a life of about 2,500 pages. This translates into printing pages that are completely black giving a life of about 125 pages. HP offers EconoMode to help you conserve toner, but remember that when you use this feature the print will be much lighter.
• The GO button on the printer is not labeled. It is the only button. The two control-panel lights should also be labeled READY and ATTENTION.
• Printing the User Guide took excruciatingly long. The procedure should point out how to reduce the resolution from the default of 600dpi to 300dpi. Most, but not all, of the pages alternated page numbers between the lower left and the lower right of the pages. This was meant to be printed duplex. The page numbers should have been put in the center instead of on the left and the right of the page. This would have allowed a user to print duplex without getting page numbers on the wrong side due to the blank pages that don't print.
• I thought that duplexing could be accomplished only by printing one page at a time and then feeding the sheet back in to print the second side. But some word processors have a duplex option that prints all the odd numbered pages, then all the even numbered pages. This allows you to stack all the input sheets for the front printing; then feed the entire stack of printed sheets for the back printing.
• HP reminds the user that duplexing can cause the printer to become dirty faster, which decreases print quality. When duplexing, I found smudges on the top edge of the front of each sheet after the first, as well as some sheets of the next print job.
• In printing a booklet, the pages shrank to half-pages, printing in the NE corner of odd- numbered pages and in the NW corner of even-numbered pages. Even if you can avoid the shrinking, the smudges from duplexing are still bothersome.
• When you decide to stop a print job, it is convenient to remove the stacked input paper, which then gives you the chance to cancel the printout from the PC.
• It would be nice if HP had provided a bin to catch the horizontal output instead of forcing the user to provide table space.
• For possible arrangements of printing two to nine pages on a single sheet, the User Guide should include examples of: a) 2-up landscape pages on a portrait sheet; b) 4-up landscape pages on a landscape sheet, and c) 6-up landscape pages on a portrait sheet. These are the standard "handout" options used by Lotus Freelance.
• The maximum installation claims to need a total of 9648KB hard drive space, but the documentation says you need 20MB to install. WhW is this?

HP LaserJet 1100 Printing System 1526KB
HP Font Smart 2906KB
Online User Guide 2916KB
All Available Fonts 2300KB
Acrobat gives no estimate of required hard drive space.

• How do you know if you need to add more memory? If the printer runs out of memory during printing, the GO button stays lit. If the page was too complex to print, you get only a partial page. You can add memory as a 4MB, 8MB, or 16MB DIMM, but how do you know how much to add? It would be nice if HP showed examples of pages requiring more than 2MB, 6MB, 10MB and 18MB so that you can compare them with your requirements.
• I chose the model without the Copier-Scanner because of the limitation of the scanner requiring loose sheets. I prefer using a flatbed scanner.
• I strongly recommend reading the entire User Guide for the sections that apply to you. It contains lots of useful information with only a few errors. I discovered one of these on page 48, which tells you how to print booklets: "After printing side 1... rotate sheets clockwise ... " This is wrong; follow the instructions prompted by your PC. Another error on page 73 says, "All the lights are on." But the Attention light is depicted as off. The Troubleshooting chapter in the Guide refers you to various topics that are not in the index.
• Why do writers use the non-word "functionality" instead of using the word "function"? "Functionality" appears in both the HP and Acrobat documentation.

My conclusion? So far the HP LaserJet 1100 seems like a very good printer for the money except for the duplexing problems. Rated by HP at 7,000 pages/month, the printer is good for a small office as well as for your home.