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Printer Software

Using the Printer Utilities

Accessing the printer utilities
EPSON Status Monitor 3/EPSON StatusMonitor
Nozzle Check
Head Cleaning
Print Head Alignment
Printer and Option Information (Windows only)
Speed & Progress (Windows only)
Configuration (Macintosh only)

EPSON printer utilities allow you to check the current printer status and perform some printer maintenance from your screen.

Accessing the printer utilities

For Windows

By accessing the printer software, the printer driver and utility menus appears in the printer software window. To use the printer utilities, click the Utility tab in the printer software window, then click the button of the utility you want to use.

Note:
  • The letter in parentheses after the utility name indicates the shortcut key for that utility. Press Alt and the letter on the keyboard to open that utility.
  • While printing is in progress, pressing any of the utility buttons, except the EPSON Status Monitor 3 button, may mar your printouts.

For Macintosh

Open the Print dialog box or Page Setup dialog box and click the Utility icon to open the Utility dialog box. Then, click the button for utility you want to use.

Note:
While printing is in progress, pressing any of the utility buttons, except the EPSON StatusMonitor button, may mar your printouts.


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EPSON Status Monitor 3/EPSON StatusMonitor

You can check the occurrence of errors and the level of ink remaining for each ink cartridge, using the EPSON Status Monitor 3 or EPSON StatusMonitor utilities (depending on your system software).


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Nozzle Check

To find out if nozzles are delivering ink properly, you can print a nozzle check pattern. If the nozzles are not delivering ink properly, missing dots will be evident in the print pattern. Printer nozzles for 6 colors can be checked at a time.

Caution:
Before you start printing images, make sure that the nozzle check pattern printing is complete. Otherwise, print quality may decline.


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Head Cleaning

If printing quality declines, or if clogged nozzles are evident after the nozzle check, the print heads need to be cleaned. Use this utility to perform the head cleaning, then perform the nozzle check again to see if a repeat head cleaning is necessary.


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Print Head Alignment

Print head alignment is necessary when a misalignment of vertical lines appears in the head alignment test pattern, or when banding is evident in your printouts.

Note:
Make sure that the printer is finished printing before performing the Nozzle Check, Head Cleaning, or Print Head Alignment utilities. Otherwise, your printout may be marred.


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Printer and Option Information (Windows only)

This utility allows the printer driver to confirm printer configuration information. It also provides specific information regarding certain characteristics of the printer, such as the Printer ID.

Depending on the configuration of your system, the information displayed in the Printer and Option Information dialog box may be updated automatically, or may need to be updated manually.

If a message appears in the Current Settings window prompting you to enter settings, or if you change the printer's configuration, follow the steps below to make the necessary settings manually.

Load paper in the printer, then click the Settings Sheet button in the Printer and Option Information dialog box. Information on your printer and options is printed out similar to that below.

Printer ID : 48-48-50-52-50-52

Make sure the information in the utility matches the printed information. If not, adjust the information on the screen to match the printed information.

Click OK to save your settings and exit the menu.


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Speed & Progress (Windows only)

You can make settings related to print speed and progress in this dialog box.

The available settings are as follows.

High Speed Copies

To print multiple copies of your document faster, select High Speed Copies.

Show Progress Meter

To monitor the progress of your print job, select Show Progress Meter.

EPSON Printer Port (For Windows 95 and 98 only)

To speed up the data transfer rate to EPSON printers, select EPSON Printer Port.

If your computer supports ECP mode, enable DMA transfer to speed up printing.

For more details, see Using Speed & Progress.

Always Spool Raw Datatype (For Windows NT only)

Select this check box to have Windows NT-based clients spool documents using the RAW format instead of the EMF (metafile) format. (Windows NT-based applications use the EMF format by default.)

Try using this option if documents spooled in EMF format do not print correctly.

Spooling RAW datatype requires fewer resources than EMF, so some problems ("Insufficient Memory/Disk Space to Print", "Slow print speed", etc.) can be solved by selecting the Always spool RAW datatype check box.

When spooling RAW datatype, print progress as displayed by the Progress Meter may differ from actual printing progress.

Monitoring Preferences

Click this button to open the Monitoring Preferences dialog box where you can make settings for EPSON Status Monitor 3. See Making monitoring preference settings.


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Configuration (Macintosh only)

Clicking this button opens the configuration dialog box, where you can change the way the StatusMonitor utility notifies you when the printer status changes. For details, see Making Configuration Settings.


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Version 1.00E, Copyright © 2001, SEIKO EPSON CORPORATION