We welcome your questions on printer colour management and related topics. The following Q&A addresses the topic of obtaining new drivers, and applies in a general sense to all brands of printers.
Colour Management
Q: I have a HP DeskJet 1120C ink-jet printer and, after upgrading from Windows 95 to Windows 98, my colour management features have disappeared. What's up?
A: The latest version of the 1120C printer driver for Windows 98 has a Color Management tab in the properties, accessible by opening the printers folder, selecting the HP 1120C icon, right-clicking and choosing Properties.
If your 1120C printer driver does not have a Color Management tab, then your driver is not WDM ("Windows Driver Model") compatible, and you need to update your driver to version 11.6 or newer.
Fortunately, I downloaded the v11.6 driver from HP's website (hp.com) for your printer to my system and had a look at it, and it definitely has a color management tab. Upgrade to this version if necessary.
It is also worth mentioning that Windows 2000 has a built-in driver for the 1120C; this should definitely provide a solution should you elect to upgrade your OS in the future.
Generally speaking, a well-written Windows 98 or Windows 2000 printer driver is known as a WDM driver; these WDM drivers are required for ICC ("International Color Consortium," I think it stands for) colour profile support under Win98. If you have a colour management tab, but no associated ICC colour profiles, you can manually add them (with the "Add" button found in this dialog), choosing whatever colour profile is appropriate for the output you are targeting, e.g., USWebUncoated.ICC, USSheetfedCoated.ICC, ColorMatchRGB.ICC, etc.
Adapt or Add a Port?
Q: I have a multi function fax machine that has a parallel port and I couldn't connect it to my new computer because it has a USB port; also, I tried using a USB converter but I couldn't connect it. How do I resolve this problem?
A: Sometimes, the parallel devices require ECP or EPP capabilities or a particular IRQ, etc., and, as such, do not work with USB adapters, which are essentially serial devices. Does the computer have a parallel port? If so, my recommendation is to use it. If you do not have a parallel port, but have a computer with a free PCI or ISA slot, you can buy and fairly easily add one for about $25. Lava makes an easy-to-install kit that costs slightly more, or you can buy a "clone" I/O card from and clone store.
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