Last time I bought a printer I went straight to hp ones and ignored all the others (Canon printers above all), and recommend HP printers to all who ask me.
Hplip is awesome and often don't get all the praises it deserves.
I've not printed one color page, yet I recently had to install a new yellow ink cartridge in order to print in black/white.
From what I've read, even when you are printing just in black, the printer uses a small amount of color ink to stop the cartridge heads from clogging. Still, I would appreciate not having to run out and buy a blue cartridge just to print 3 pages of a text document.
I should mention that if you do mostly black and white printing it may be more economical to get a laser printer, even just a grayscale one.
Just slapping a black and white document into the queue do not trigger this automatically.
Source? Also, how do B&W printers solve this problem then?
I'm not sure how B&W inkjet printers solve it, but it's probably by spending more ink to avoid the wash-out. As other people pointed out, some color printers allow for printing with just the black cartridge in. I don't have one of these to compare, so it's possible the text doesn't look as crisp on these because of the lack of "anti-aliasing".
I suppose part of the reason for this limitation to apply to some printers but not others has to do with the business model (ink is expensive and for some brands/model lines it's the main source of revenue), and perhaps the technology used - some printers have disposable headers on the cartridges themselves, and others (like the printers I own) have non-disposable headers, which basically means the printer is ruined if ink dries up in the headers. This may be why some printers require the cartridges, even if empty, to be in, so the headers are not as exposed to the air.
Unfortunately manufacturers don't like to give extensive explanations (see my business model point above...), but on user forum threads like [0] and [1] there are some suggestions for why things are the way they are.
[0] http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/224699-28-print-black-co... [1] http://superuser.com/questions/409473/how-to-print-in-black-...
If I run out of paper, there is no way to resume nor cancel, and if there is a way I am sure it doesn't work.
I hope they improve all the drivers and firmware.
It was awful, and it didn't let me use generic toner. I had to flash it's firmware. Way too much hassle for a printer.
Why is this an issue at all? Aren't the protocols for talking to a printer standardized or is that ugliness hidden within the drivers themselves?
Business idea! A device that plugs into your printer (or network) and exposes it as a "more compatible" printer on the same network! Yes it's silly that you'd need a separate device to do this, but it would allow for having a clean implementation of IPP exposed (so no more hacks or backwards compatibility issues). Maybe a custom OS build atop a Rasberry Pi for a proof of concept.
I would definitely buy one. Spending $50 on something like that to save hours upon hours of wasted time setting up Linux printers.
I keep an old Mac mini around largely for this and NAS playback.