Articles Index

Copying Two Pages Onto One

Copying two pages onto one saves you paper and money. Here's how to do it with the Canon Pixma MP610.

Print a CD/DVD Label Using the Epson Stylus Photo RX680 Printer

Printing directly onto a CD or DVD using the Epson Stylus Photo RX680 inkjet printer couldn’t be easier, and the results are fantastic. This Step-By-Step guide will demonstrate how to do it. Note that you need to make sure the CD or DVD you’re using can be printed on; check the label before you buy. Also, make sure you have already burned to the disk; once you’ve put the label on, you can’t burn data to the disk.

Cool OCR Software You Already Have

If you are scanning documents, you may wish that you could convert them to Word documents rather than PDFs or image files so they'd be easier to search and edit. But if you’re like me, you’d rather not have to buy new (and expensive) software. Microsoft Office Document Imaging software can convert the text in a scanned image to a Word document, and it's built into Office. Here’s how to find and use it.

Clean the Inside of Your Pixma Printer

There are a few reasons why the Pixma's print jobs don’t look their best. If you’re seeing stripes, it could be due to clogged printheads, which are easy to <a href="/od/howto/ht/cleanprintheads.htm" unclog</a>. But if you find smudges on the back of the paper, the inside of the printer may be dirty. This is how you can easily clean the inside of your Pixma.

Clean Your Printer and Scanner

If the platen glass or document cover of your printer/scanner are dirty or smudged, your scan and print jobs aren’t going to look good. Cleaning these elements is easy with nothing more than cloth and water. Don’t use paper towels or tissues (they can leave fine threads behind), and never use chemical cleaners.

Unjam Paper Jams

Paper jams can happen for a number of reasons. The most common reasons are that the paper tray is overloaded or the edge of the paper is curled or folded. Paper typically jams between the sheet feeder and the output tray, or inside the machine. Here are step-by-step directions to clearing up both kinds of paper jams.

Installing New Ink Tanks

Installing ink tanks into an inkjet printer is a quick and painless process (except for the price you’ll pay for those ink tanks, of course). Here’s a step-by-step look at getting those cartridges into your printer. I’ll demonstrate using a Canon Pixma MP530, but the process should be pretty similar in all inkjet printers.