Printers have lots of features that let you get exactly the prints you want each time. All it takes is a little experimentation. Use this guide to help you set up your printer just the way you want it, for whatever you’re printing.
When you choose Print, you may have noticed a button that says Properties. Usually it’s on the upper right-hand side of the Print dialog box. It is your gateway to a world of customized printing options, and from it, you get extraordinary control over your print jobs.
Some of the things you can do here:
Set print quality
Choose paper size and type
Select color or black-and-white printing
Set the print orientation. Choose Landscape, a horizontal shape perfect for spreadsheets, PowerPoint decks, and maps, or Portrait, a vertical direction good for most word processing documents.
Your printer offers different quality settings that use various amounts of ink. Changing them to match your print need is a great way to extend the life of your ink cartridges.
Best quality uses the most saturated amount of ink for crisp black and whites, and the richest blend of colors for images. It’s perfect for official documents like business letters, final reports, or resumes—anything that needs that professional touch.
Normal quality gives you sharp contrast and rich colors, but does not use as much ink and so the resulting output is a little lighter. Use it for personal correspondence, or for printing recipes you want to save.
Draft quality is the fastest way to print, and it uses the least amount of ink, but it also looks less polished than the other options. It’s a good choice for anything you need to print quickly that you don’t have to keep: driving directions, calendar items, first drafts of written projects.
Default mode—what your printer is automatically set up to do—is usually Best or Normal quality. You can change this to something more economical like draft.
Go to Print > Properties > print quality, and select the setting you want.
Click “Set as default” to lock the new settings. From here on out, your printer will automatically print the way you tell it to.
Create shortcuts for different quality settings
Use the Printer Wizard to make customized print settings for your most common print tasks.
No single setting is right for every print job. Sometimes you’ll want Best quality, and when you print photos, you’ll need another setting. To cover all your needs, you can create shortcuts, called virtual printers, to the settings you use most often. Here’s how to do it:
Go to Control Panel > Printers and Faxes.
Click Add Printer. This will start the “add printer” wizard.
3. Select your printer from the list, and choose “Keep existing driver.” 4. Designate a name for the virtual printer that incorporates the setting. Something like: HP_photosmart_D7360_highquality. Do not set it as the default. 5. Click Finish, and the new virtual printer will appear in your list.
You can make different virtual printers for your most frequently used settings—for instance, envelopes or photos.
HP has a robust line of printers—everything from compact photo printers you can take anywhere, to all-in-ones that print, copy, scan, and fax. Compare them all.
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