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Printing with Windows

Increasing the Print Speed

General tips
Making Speed & Progress settings (not available for Windows 3.1)
Making Configure LPT Port settings (for Windows NT 4.0 only)

Follow the instructions in this section to increase the printing speed of your printer.

General tips

Just as printing at a high resolution requires more processing time than printing at a low resolution, printing in color takes longer than printing in black because the volume of data in a color document is much greater. For this reason, it is important to be selective in your use of color if you also require a fast print speed.

However, even if your document requires the highest resolution and extensive use of color — for example, when you are printing a camera-ready composite that includes color photographs — it may still be possible to optimize the print speed by adjusting other printing conditions. Keep in mind that changing some conditions to increase the print speed may also lower print quality.

The following table shows the factors that inversely affect print speed and print quality (increasing one will decrease the other).

The table below shows the factors related to print speed only.

*  Varies depending on the printer driver and application that you are using.

**  Grayscale means using black ink only to print varying shades of gray, from pure black to pure white.

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Making Speed & Progress settings (not available for Windows 3.1)

You can make certain print speed settings in the Speed & Progress dialog box. Click the Speed & Progress button on your printer software's Utility menu. The following dialog box appears.

The following settings are available in the Speed & Progress dialog box.

High Speed Copies

Select this check box to turn on high-speed printing for multiple copies. This speeds up printing by using your hard disk space as a cache when printing multiple copies of your document.

EPSON Printer Port (for Windows 98 and 95 only)

Select this check box to enable the EPSON printer port, which is optimized for EPSON printers, instead of the Windows default printer port. This speeds up the data transfer rate to EPSON printers.

Note:

This setting is unavailable when your printer is connected via the USB port.

Use DMA transfer (for Windows 98 and 95 only)

If your computer has a parallel port which supports ECP mode, you can enable DMA transfer to speed up printing. See your computer manual to determine if it supports ECP mode and DMA transfer.

To determine whether you need to enable DMA transfer, compare the message below the EPSON Printer Port check box to this table, and take the recommended action.

To enable DMA transfer, follow the steps below.

Double-click the My Computer icon on your desktop, then double-click the Control Panel icon.

Double-click the System icon, then click the Device Manager tab.

Double-click the Ports (COM & LPT) icon and then LPT1. If you have connected your printer to a port other than LPT1, double-click the appropriate port icon.

Click the Resources tab, then clear the Use automatic settings check box. Write down the Input/Output Range settings shown in the resource settings box.

Select a basic configuration setting from the Setting based on list that uses the same Input/Output Range settings as those you wrote down in Step 4, and make sure that the Direct Memory Access channel and Interrupt Request numbers are allocated and displayed. Confirm also that the Conflicting device list box shows No conflicts.

Click OK to save the settings.

Reopen the Speed & Progress dialog box to confirm that DMA transfer has been enabled.

Note:

You may be unable to use DMA transfer on some computers even after you make the settings described above. Consult your computer maker for information on the DMA transfer capabilities of your computer.

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Making Configure LPT Port settings (for Windows NT 4.0 only)

Note:

Port settings for Windows NT 4.0 are complicated and should only be made by an experienced user with administrative privileges.

If your computer has a parallel port that supports ECP mode, you can make certain print speed settings in the Configure LPT Port dialog box. Before making settings, make sure that ECP mode has been selected in your computer settings. For details about ECP mode, see your computer manual.

To access the Configure LPT Port dialog box, click the Start button, point to Settings, then click Printers. Select your printer and click Properties on the File menu. The printer driver opens. Click the Ports tab and then Configure Port. The following dialog box appears.

Click the LPT port tab for the port to which your printer is connected, then click the Change setting button.

Note:

If your printer is connected to LPT1, only the LPT1 tab is available.

It is possible to make resource settings and enable DMA transfer in the Configure LPT Port dialog box. Refer to the appropriate section below.

Resource settings (IRQ and DMA)

If you have connected your printer to LPT2 or LPT3, making IRQ and DMA settings here may speed up printing. Input the same configuration numbers for IRQ and DMA which you have made for your expansion board. See your computer documentation to determine the settings for IRQ and DMA.

Use DMA Transfer

Using DMA transfer to send print data to the computer may help you speed up printing. If the Use DMA Transfer check box is not available, you must first enable DMA transfer in your computer settings. For details, see your computer documentation.

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