CJ Chitwood

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Standard hundred-dollar desktop 8.5-by-11-inch inkjet printer. Prints from basic black-on-white text to full-color, full-bleed photographs (see reviews) using cartridges that cost anywhere from $20 to $35 depending on source.

Allows printing index pages and full-bleed prints directly from media card. The printer has a several-format cardreader built-in, and it supports SD/MMC, CompactFlash, MS/DUO, and XD memory sticks. What's better, is that this very same cardreader ACTS AS A USB THUMBDRIVE DEVICE IN LINUX so you can use it to pull the pictures straight off the camera's memory card onto the hard drive without having to clutter up the desk with another USB device.

It autodetects paper type and width using some kind of LED/laser (similar to that of an optical mouse) built into the print carriage.

Printer cost when new at Office Depot: $130



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DRIVER INSTALLATION

Uses Photosmart D5100 driver in cups / gutenprint
I'm installing it as I type this.

*Install cups, foomatic, hpijs, dependencies, kitchen-sink
***For Debian: I have the following packages installed. You may or may not need all of them.

cupsys cupsys-common cupsys-driver-gutenprint cupsys-pt foomatic-db foomatic-db-hpijs foomatic-filters hpijs

*Go to http://www.openprinting.org/show_dri...i?driver=hpijs and select from their PPD-O-Matic the 5160 PPD file. Save to disk.

*Go to http://localhost:631 in browser.

*Make selection to add a printer.

*For me, there was a button saying "Add this printer" in the "new printers found" section of the page. I hit this button.

*On the next page, select to use your own PPD. Enter the path or browse to the PPD file you saved.

*Hit "Add Printer" at bottom, enter credentials for authorized (eg. root) user, and printer installs successfully (for me, at least).

Now you can set printer options. Defaults work for me, for general everyday web-page printing. For photoprinting, set the obvious. You're on your own here. Google is your friend. I suggest playing with these settings and then immediately printing off a CUPS test page from within CUPS in the web browser, and note the differences in the color wheel, gray ramp, and 1-degree radials. It can surprise you. Then, try it with different paper types.

So far, my only disappointment in this printer is the fact that I occasionally need to unplug it and plug it back in in order to use it as a cardreader.

mount /dev/sda1 -t vfat /media/usb0/

...mounts my Kodak C743's SD card just like a thumbdrive. In fact, I can even stick my USB thumbdrive in the PictBridge USB port and mount it the same way. I then browse to

/media/usb0/dcim/100kc743/

to get my photos from the card. No messy USB interface program to the camera to fight with -- just insert the card into the printer and mount it.

Alternatively, I can insert the card into the printer and have it print a Photo Index right from the front panel. No need for a computer. Then I can select which images I want to print and what size/layout on the page (with some understandable limitations) without any need for a computer either. Of course, for full control, just mount the card and go to town with the GIMP or whatever other photoediting programs there might exist and print the layout you want.




It's an excellent printer, too. Most of its functions are done in hardware, AS IT SHOULD BE, making it an excellent candidate for use in a multi-platform environment such as one using both Linux and that other OS (OS X).


It's coolness goes a step further: IT PRINTS DIRECTLY ON MATTE-WHITE-LABEL CDs (that are a bit cheaper than LightScribe discs, which are monochromatic besides)! Get the "glabels" program, google for the CD templates, and go to town!


Photos that come out of this machine are almost indistinguishable from those you get at Wally World or the corner drugstore. The only difference, aside from the word "inkjet" on the back of the paper, is that blacks and other very dark colors have a slightly different reflectiveness, just like you see in magazines. However, you have to have the light source reflecting directly off the page and into your eye... Mounted in a frame, you CAN NOT TELL it came from a bubblejet.


Go buy yourself a good paper cutter. You're going to need it once you get into putting 8 wallet-size photos on a page in the GIMP.



In an improperly formed, incomplete sentence:













Of course, now that I've praised it, it's time for mine to start messing up on me... that's the way things normally work for me, at least :-/

HP Photosmart D5160 Printer (Q7091A#ABA)

CJ Chitwood

Update:

And mess up it did... I was posting largely from memory. As I typed the directions for adding the printer to CUPS, I was actually adding it at the same time -- because I was reinstalling my OS from scratch (again). I had hosed my system (I forget how, now...) and naturally I'm using different versions of software now than I was before the hosing.

Of course, gLabels won't print for me now, and I can't find the templates for it. Google says the HP project at Sourceforge has all three, but their 404-serving Sourceforge site disagrees. Nonetheless, I have been forced to an alternative, and a better one for this particular use!

The GIMP!

I prefer using The GIMP for graphics, and as long as it can be made to print correctly to this printer, then this is exactly the best tool for printing CDs. Unfortunately, it doesn't work out-of-the-box.

The GIMP always printed off-center before, but in the absense of gLabels, I've been forced to figure out why. I'll save you the trouble of reading everything I've tried in the past 48 hours on only about 90 cumulative minutes of doze time, but here's the quick get-er-going you'll need to set this printer up to allow GIMP to print to it, on-center, full to the edge of the disc.


I've uploaded to my UNF student website some GIMP files. Visit
my UNF student website GIMP page to download them.


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HOWTO:

Step 1.
Retrieve from OpenPrinting.org's PPD-O-Matic the PPD file for the Photosmart D5100 series.

Step 2.
Retrieve from my UNF student website the PPD file for the CD-Only 5160.

Step 3.
Set up the printer in CUPS as explained in my first post.

Step 4.
Acquire an image of a CD. Best option is to scan one in on your own, so that you have an exact template of the disc. Center this -- EXACTLY -- within an image with size 342 points (4.75 inches) square. Alternatively, use mine from my UNF student website.

Step 5.
Open my UNF student GIMP images. Note the way the layers are done. I basically made the white part of the CD label transparent, and then made everything else white. That's a top layer. Under that layer is another layer where you paste the image you want on the CD. You'll do this with the scan of your own CD, or you can use mine. If you happen to use Memorex printable CD-R with the separated printable hub, you're in luck -- that's what mine are (Memorex part number 32024725, UPC code 0-34707-04725-9, 30 in a spindle). The reason for making this mask is so that the printer doesn't keep wasting ink by printing on parts of the CD that are not printable, or worse, on the CD carriage itself. If it's white, there's no ink!

Step 6.
Tell GIMP to print. Create a new printer. Give it a name that you will remember as being ONLY for printing to CD media. Tell it to use the PPD you will find on my UNF student website. For the print queue, tell it to use the print queue you added in step 3 above. It will then take the 'custom' edited PPD for handling the image, and send it to the printer in the CUPS queue you made in step 3. I don't know why it must be done like this, but this is the only way I could get it to work. Any time both GIMP and CUPS use the same PPD, the printing is off-center by the same amount and in the same direction.


You may want to take that clear protectodisc that you get in every spindle and trace it onto some heavy duty paper, manilla folder, or cardstock, then cut it out (best is to trace it with an xactoknife, but that can be quite bloody if you're not careful). Print to these cheap 'test discs' instead of your pricey, one-time-use CD-R media. You'll even find that one of the GIMP files on my UNF site has crosshairs included for testing GIMP's centering.


You may also find that the printers vary from person to person. There is a line in the PPD file called 'ImageableArea'. This has four integers in it, which are the left edge, bottom edge, right edge, and top edge of the CD image, respectively. Simply adjust these numbers. The bottom left corner is (0,0) and the top right corner is (400,400) so no numbers can be less than 0 or more than 400. Your image area has to be 342 points wide and tall, so if your CD edge has to be moved over to the 'right' by 10 points (one point = 1/72 of an inch), simply increase the first and third numbers on that line by 10 (as long as the third one isn't more than 400). If 400 isn't enough, you may need to start hacking deeper into your PPDs.


If you've gotten this far, you're smart enough to figure out the rest on your own (because at the moment I am out of time -- it's been thirty nine hours since I've seen sleep and I have to be awake in another six to get ready for my job). Reply here if you want further guidance -- I'll try to help if you need it, but I'm far from an expert.


Cheers!