The Bottom Line
- Installs quickly and easily.
- Lets you eliminate unnecessary color elements or photos.
- Lets you easily print in draft mode, thus saving ink.
- Good for doing quick print of Web page.
- Doesn't shink down Web pages to fit on letter-sized paper.
- Preview only works with text-only or text-and-images.
- "Fast Pics" photo printing applet could use some work.
- Only available for Internet Explorer.
Description
- Type of Product: Software
- Requires: Windows 98 or later; Microsoft Internet Explorer 5.5 or later
- Price: Free
Guide Review - Review: Lexmark Toolbar
Lexmark has offered to help with at least some of its problems by making available its Lexmark Toolbar, a toolbar for the Windows Internet Explorer browser that lets you cut through at least some of these difficulties. The toolbar provides you with several buttons: Normal (for normal printing), Quick (for draft printing), Black and White (to save on color ink), Text Only (to eliminate images and other ink-hungry elements on the page), Photos (if you only want to print the photos on a page), and Preview.
If you spend more than you want to on printer ink and paper, this applet can actually be a money-saver: It makes it easier for you to print in draft mode, or to avoid printing in color when you don't want to. I especially liked the Text Only mode, which let me avoid printing out advertisements along with a news article.
As a photo app, the Toolbar's Fast Pics is less successful. It will pick up and print any photos on a Web page and offers basic editing features such as Red Eye and Crop, but there are better photo apps available (such as Google's free Picasa).
In short, the Lexmark Toolbar is a handy add-on for Internet Explorer users who do a lot of printing from the Web.
