Tips & Tricks

Your Printer X 2

Do you need to adjust your printer settings a lot? You know, maybe most of the time you print in Draft mode to save on ink expense, but sometimes you need to print out a photograph and select different, higher quality settings. Or perhaps you have your printer set to print in grayscale all the time normally, but find that you need to switch back to color mode frequently too.

Well, if you have that problem, have I got a trick for you!

Instead of messing around with changing settings back and forth all the time, install your printer a second time - with different settings. Then, all you need to do is select the second version or regular version of the printer from the print dialog box. Much faster than changing settings back and forth.

Here's a sample:

To install your printer twice, just go to the Printers folder under your Start button, Settings, Printers (for XP users, under the Control Panel).

Click the Add Printer icon and install the printer as you normally would. Oh, here's a little shortcut - You should be able to pick your printer from the list the wizard provides and not need to dig out your printer driver disks. And don't worry - you can install the same printer twice without any problem.

For example, in the shot below, I just selected my printer from the list and was never asked for a disk.

When it comes time to name the printer give it a different, probably more descriptive, name.

You can also re-name the original printer if you like. Just right-click it and select "rename" from the resulting menu. I named my original HP-Color and the new one HP-Draft.

Next, while you're still in the Printers folder, put in your custom settings for each printer by Right-clicking the printer you want to modify and selecting Properties from the resulting menu. This is where you set the printers up for color, draft, b&w, etc. The procedure varies from printer to printer, but it's never too hard. Just play around with the tabs and buttons until you find the settings you want to change.

Personally, I have one printer set up for regular color printing and one for draft quality grayscale printing.

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