BinkJet FAQs
Supported Printers
Q1. Which printers does BinkJet support?A. BinkJet version 2.5 supports 45 different printers. They are comprised of the following DeskJet printer models: 610, 612, 640, 642, 648, 660, 670, 672, 680, 682, 690, 692, 693, 694, 695, 697, 810, 812, 815, 830, 832, 840, 842, 843, 850, 855, 870, 880, 882, 890, 895, 930, 932, 935, 950, 952, 955, and 970.
BinkJet also supports plain paper print modes on the PhotoSmart P1000 and P1100 and it works with the Apollo P-2100U, P-2150U, P-2200, P-2250 and the Color StyleWriter 6500.
Q2. Why doesn't BinkJet work with the DeskJet 700 series or the DeskJet 820? I know of someone who has managed to get these to work under Linux.
A. These printers use a proprietary printer control language that HP has not made available. As a result, there are significant technical challenges to support these printers, so support is not on the immediate horizon.
We are aware that the printer control language of these printers has been reverse engineered somewhat by Linux programmers, but their work doesn't support simultaneous printing of color and black and it only uses half of the black nozzles which is slow and might not be good for the health of the black print cartridge. Clarkwood Software does not consider this to be good enough for use in our driver, so we do not currently have a solution for the DeskJet 700 series and DeskJet 820.
Q3. Why doesn't BinkJet work with the DeskWriter 660, 680, 682, 694, Color StyleWriter 4100, or Color StyleWriter 4500?
A. These printers do not work correctly with the serial transport in BeOS. Although these printers all use the same version of PCL as their DeskJet cousins, there is no reliable way to communicate with these printers from BeOS.
Deinstallation
Q1. How do I deinstall BinkJet?A. Removing BinkJet from your system is a simple two step process. First, launch the Printers preferences application from the Be Preferences menu. Select each printer that uses BinkJet and click on the Remove button.
Second, remove the BinkJet driver file from your system. Each version of BinkJet driver consists of a single file. To remove a specific version of BinkJet, remove one of the following files:
- For BinkJet v2.5, remove the file /boot/home/config/add-ons/Print/BinkJet v2.5.
- For BinkJet v2.0, remove the file /boot/home/config/add-ons/Print/BinkJet v2.0.
- For BinkJet v1.3, remove the file /boot/home/config/add-ons/Print/BinkJet.
- For BinkJet v1.0, remove the file /boot/beos/system/add-ons/Print/BinkJet.
Connectivity
Q1. Can I use USB?A. Yes. As of BeOS R5, you can use USB to connect your printer to your computer. In fact, we recommend USB over parallel I/O because it is more standard, works more reliably, and is a faster connection. In order to use USB under BeOS, it might be necessary to enable legacy USB support in your ROM BIOS, or you might have to assign an IRQ to USB.
Q2. Can I use BinkJet with networked printers?
A. We've heard reports that this can be made to work, but we have not tested it ourselves.
Q3. Can I use BinkJet with a serially connected printer on x86 systems?
A. This may work, but it is an unsupported configuration. On x86 systems, connect your printer using a parallel port or a USB port. The serial option in BinkJet is intended for Mac systems which don't have a parallel port.
Q4. Can I use BinkJet with a parallel printer connected with a USB to Parallel cable?
A. This has been found to work, but it is currently an unsupported configuration.
Functionality
Q1. Can I print on photo paper?A. The color maps in BinkJet have been optimized for printing on plain paper. It would be unlikely that you would get satisfying results printing on photo paper because HP's black inks are designed for printing on plain paper. When printing on photo paper, only the color inks are used. BinkJet does not yet support printing with only the color inks.
Q2. Do you support PhotoREt?
A. The answer is yes, unless you have a DeskJet 690 series printer.
The original PhotoREt was used by the 690 series of DeskJets and DeskWriters. In those printers, the user has the option of swapping the black cartridge for a special color cartridge that contains light cyan, light magenta, and dye based black inks. This turns the printer into a 6-color photo printer. BinkJet does not yet support 6-color printing.
PhotoREt II and PhotoREt III uses HP's color layering technology. Small drops of color ink are layered on top of each other to produce many different hues while printing at 300 or 600 dpi.
Q3. Does BinkJet support ColorSmart?
A. ColorSmart is an HP umbrella marketing term for many different types of technologies that are used in HP printer drivers. These include algorithms for using different color matching schemes for different types of objects on the page, and algorithms for enhancing the resolution of low resolution images. These technologies are HP proprietary and are not used by BinkJet.
Q4. Can I use just the black or just the color cartridge with the Apollo 2100U series?
A. BinkJet is designed to print using both the black and color cartridges. For this reason, we recommend that you put both cartridges in your printer. In a pinch, you could print with just the black cartridge by selecting the "Grayscale/Fax/Photocopy" print quality mode.
Trouble Shooting
Q1. I can't print to my printer that is connected to my parallel port. It works under Windows. Why doesn't it work under BeOS?A.With the release of BeOS R5, the parallel port is only supported in ECP mode. Make sure to select ECP mode in your ROM BIOS.
Q2. I use my DeskJet using the USB port under Windows and the parallel port under BeOS. My printer seems to work only intermittently with this setup. What is wrong?
A. The USB capable DeskJets will only work with the first type of connection they receive until they are turned off and back on. So, if you print via USB then parallel will not work until you turn the printer off and back on. Likewise, if you print via parallel, then USB will not work until you turn the printer off and back on again. This behavior is different than the older DeskJets that supported parallel and serial connections. On those you could send down jobs over either connection without having to turn the printer off and on.
Q3. Why do my pages come out in reverse order, even though I haven't selected Reverse page order in the BinkJet Print Dialog?
A. The BinkJet philosophy is that the user should be able to grab the completed document from the output tray and use it without reordering the pages. In order to do this, the last page of the document is printed first. If you would like the first page to come out first and you don't mind reordering your document, then select Reverse page order.
Q4. When I print something out, it's wrong. Either there is extra stuff or stuff is missing or moved.
A. From your system preferences, run Printers and add a Preview driver and make it the default. Print the same job again and preview it. If the preview shows the same problems, then it is an application printing problem and you need to let your application vendor know about it. If the preview is correct and the BinkJet printout is wrong, then let us know about it at: binkjet@clarkwoodsoftware.com.