Croma24 Control Panel

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I have purchased the Croma24 PosterSHOP Lite version and am installing it. I noticed in Chapter 12 of your user guide, you say not to install the default printer drivers that came with the printer, for they can cause the system to crash. But to be able to install the color cartridges and calibrate the alignment of the print heads and monitor the ink levels, you have to use the Encad supplied Croma24 Control Panel. Although, the problem is that to be able to use the control panel, you have to install the print drivers. So as you can see, I'm in a Catch 22 and am not sure what road to take. Do you have a work-around or some other alternate route? I'm sure this is something your company has considered in the creation of your PosterSHOP product? Can you please tell me what the proper action is to take. I can't print until I know what to do. Thank you very much. :)

David Warner II

-- Anonymous, July 05, 1999

Answers

Installing the default printer drivers into your Windows environment should not cause a system crash. If this is true, the drivers from ENCAD would need to be modified in order to be fixed. Please look on the www.encad.com site to get the latest drivers for the Croma24. In order to use the default Windows drivers, you need to tell the driver which port to use to communicate to the printer. When you print to the printer using PosterShop, you also need to use that same port connection. Therefore, all your PosterShop output to the printer will first be spooled to the printer's spool directory on your hard disk as a result of using the Windows installed driver. This is a waste of your hard disk space and a waste of your time. As a workaround, use the windows driver temporarily when installing ink cartridges and calibrating the alignment of the print heads and/or to check the status of the ink levels. You will not be able to continuously monitor the ink levels with this method. Once you are done with the Windows driver, change the Port setting to anything but the actual parallel port that it is connected to. Then, when you use PosterShop, the output data will not be spooled and it will go directly to the printer. We chose not to implement a control panel interface within PosterShop because we do not have a reliable method of Bidirectional communications for a parallel port. Most parallel printers did not need this Bidirectional communications because they had a control panel. But, we realize that there must be a remedy for this problem in future products.

-- Anonymous, July 08, 1999

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