The Final Straw

Ken Rigsby gives printers a good hammering

Last week, I needed to print an address on an envelope. So I found the appropriate template in Libreoffice Writer, tapped out the address, inserted the envelope in the printer’s slot and then hit the Print icon. What could go wrong?

While I waited for things to kick into gear, I did what every seasoned printer user does next. I pulled on my wellies, trudged down to the garden shed, hefted my sledgehammer and – whistling contentedly as I diverted back via the kitchen to wish dear Mrs Rigsby a fine morning – returned to my office. And then, obviously, I used it to smash the printer into a million small pieces.

When I sadly awoke from this satisfying dream I was faced with the nightmare reality: printing almost anything drives me potty, because my printers seem to have minds of their own. Yes, I’m crazy enough to have two – a laser for long jobs, and an inkjet for colour documents and photos.

Save for the sledgehammer bit, my imagined envelope-printing experience is a reflection of the painful reality. Yes, I know that on the second attempt I’ll remember that the sheath needs to be face up, not face down. And yes, I realise too that on my sixth go I’ll have figured out which edge needs to be fed into the printer for the address to be the right way up. Heck, by the seventh tap of the Print button I might even coax the printer to put the address somewhere other than where the Royal Mail stamp is supposed to go.

Some of these frustrations are down to my own stupidity, but it doesn’t help that my inkjet printer wants pages inserted face up, while the laser demands to be fed face down. Nor is life made easier by the fact that my inkjet’s traction roller grabs as soon as something’s inserted. That’s fine with A4 sheets, as they generally self-correct their path, but smaller paper always seems to be sucked in skew-whiff, so I have to crouch down to peer in to make sure my aim is just right.

Of course, at some point, usually when there’s an urgent deadline looming, the printer will run out of ink or toner. With the laser, a quick shake of the drum sometimes gets me back in business, albeit at the expense of ink-stained fingers and toxic-dust inhalation. But the inkjet? Well, I foolishly bought a model that uses ‘chipped’ cartridges. You know: that little manufacturing wheeze that ensures not only that I’m unable to coax out a hard copy when I really need one but also forces me to cash in a pension or two every time I need to buy a new cartridge. Which, incidentally, seems to be a suspiciously regular requirement.

I’m already seething, and I’ve only written so far about the hardware! Windows is quite capable of driving most printers, but the hardware manufacturers delight in foisting their own software on users. These pretty interfaces are intended to make printing simpler, but many also tell you that the ink is low, or check whether you’ve inserted the correct (ie, exorbitantly priced) cartridges.

Instead of using a single, standardised ‘Print’ panel, companies confound us with a dozen different boxes, buttons and garish logos. Also, they seemingly conspire with their rivals to ensure that there’s absolutely no consistency between one printer’s Windows interface and the next.

Is it too much to expect my printers to just... print? Apparently, it is. So, when I next need to address an envelope I’ll grab a pen and write it by hand. It won’t look terribly professional, but it could save me from a nervous breakdown.

I grabbed my sledgehammer and smashed my printer into a million pieces

What printer problems do you have? Let us know at letters@computeractive.co.uk