Beginner's Guide to Inkjet Printer Care

In this final article in our Beginner's Special series, I thought it would be a good idea to touch on a subject that very few of us practice — inkjet printer care. Inkjets tend to have a high number of moving parts, so there's much that can go wrong with them. If you've been wondering why your inkjet printer hasn't been giving you the performance it used to, maybe it's time you give it the little bit of attention it deserves. So, here are a few tips that you need to follow to keep your printer running as good as new for a long time.

Always install the drivers first
Connecting a printer before installing the drivers (from the accompanying CD) is definitely not a good idea. Windows by default goes a bit haywire trying to figure out the USB device that you have attached to the PC, and without the drivers guiding it, it may just mark your printer as an 'Unknown USB Device'. You can avoid that mess by simply installing the drivers first and connect the printer to your PC once the drivers instruct you, or the installation is complete.

Your first print
Sure, you must be happy about getting that spanking new printer, but before you start shooting off prints, it would be a good idea to run a few maintenance tests first. All printers comes with basic maintenance tests like cartridge aligning and nozzle checking, which can be found under printer properties. It would take only a couple of minutes to do these checks, and once done, you can be sure that you will get optimum quality prints.

Get a cover
Dust is a printer's biggest nemesis. Considering how little home printers are used on average, it would be a great idea to get a cover for your printer while buying the printer itself. You don't want clogged nozzles and slippery rollers, do you?