Printing with Windows

Using the Printer Utilities

EPSON Status Monitor 3
Nozzle Check
Head Cleaning
Print Head Alignment
Speed & Progress

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

To use the utilities, click the Utility tab in the printer software, then click the button for the utility that you want to use. For information on how to access the printer software, see Accessing the printer software.

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.

Do not use the Nozzle Check, Head Cleaning, or Print Head Alignment utilities if your printer is connected to your computer through a network.

Do not use the Nozzle Check, Head Cleaning, or Print Head Alignment utilities while printing is in progress; otherwise, your printout may be marred.

Refer to the appropriate section below.

EPSON Status Monitor 3

EPSON Status Monitor 3 provides you with printer status information, such as the amount of ink remaining, and checks for printer errors.

This utility is only available when both of the following conditions are met:

The printer is connected directly to the host computer via the parallel or USB port.

Your system is configured to support bidirectional communication.

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Nozzle Check

The Nozzle Check utility checks the print head nozzles for clogging. Check the nozzles if you notice print quality has declined and after cleaning to confirm that the print head nozzles have been cleared. If the nozzle check indicates the print head needs cleaning, you can access the Head Cleaning utility directly from the Nozzle Check utility. For details, see Checking the Print Head Nozzles.

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Head Cleaning

The Head Cleaning utility cleans the print head. You may need to clean the print head if you notice print quality has declined. Use the Nozzle Check utility first to confirm that the print head needs to be cleaned. You can access the Nozzle Check utility directly from the Head Cleaning utility. For details, see Cleaning the Print Head.

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Print Head Alignment

The Print Head Alignment utility aligns the print head. If you notice a misalignment of vertical lines in your printouts, use this utility as described below to realign the print head.

When you run the Print Head Alignment utility, the printer prints test patterns that you use to check the print head alignment.

Here are sample printouts.

From each pattern on the printed test sheet, choose the vertical line that is aligned best. For each pattern, select the corresponding line number from the appropriate drop-down list box in the Print Head Alignment dialog box, then click Finish to put the new settings into effect.

Note:

If you cannot find a line which is aligned correctly, select the number of the line which is the closest to being correct and click Realignment. The lines you selected will be reset to the center (number 8) position and the alignment test sheet will be printed again.

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Speed & Progress

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

The available settings are listed below.

Note:

The specific features available in the printer software vary depending on the printer model and the version of Windows that you are using.

High Speed Copies

To print multiple copies of your document faster, select High Speed 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 printer models that use the parallel port, you can speed up the data transfer rate by selecting EPSON Printer Port.

Parallel port users can further increase print speed by enabling DMA transfer, as explained in Enabling DMA transfer.

Always spool RAW datatype (for Windows 2000)

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 less 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.

Note:

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

Monitoring Preferences

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

You can make the following settings:

Select Notification

Displays the current error notification settings.

Select the check boxes of the error types for which you want to receive notification.

Note:
Click the Default button to revert all Select Notification settings to their defaults.

Select Shortcut Icon

Select the Shortcut Icon check box and choose an icon type to have a shortcut icon placed in your Windows taskbar. You can click the shortcut icon in the taskbar to open EPSON Status Monitor 3, or right-click the icon to access some of the printer utilities.

Allow monitoring of shared printers

Select this check box to allow monitoring of a shared printer by other computers.

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