Canon BJC-250 User Manual

BJC-250

USER
MANUAL

Canon

Contents

BJC-250

1 Introduction

Supplies and Accessories 1.2
BJ Cartridges 1.2
Canon Specialty Papers 1.4
Getting Help From Canon 1.5
Servicing the Printer 1.6

2 Using the Printer With Windows®

Installing the Printer Driver 2.1
Printing a Document 2.2
Printer Setup Within Windows 95 2.3
Opening the Printer Properties Dialog Box in Windows 95 2.3
Using the Printer Driver in Windows 95 2.3
Printer Setup Within Windows 3.1 2.4
Accessing The Printer Options 2.4
The Windows Tabs 2.5
Specifying Your Printer Options 2.8
Recommended Graphics Settings 2.8
Using the Setup Analyzer 2.9
Using Cartridge Detection 2.10
Printing Speed Verses Color 2.11
For Quick Color Printing 2.11
For High Quality Color Printing 2.11
For Monochrome Printing 2.11
Other Ways to Improve Print Speed in Windows 2.12

3 Paper Handling

Selecting Paper Types 3.2
Paper Guidelines 3.4
Setting the Paper Thickness Lever 3.5
Printer Settings for Various Print Media 3.6
Loading Paper 3.7
Automatically Feeding Paper 3.7

1.1

2.1

3.1

Manually Feeding Paper
Printing Envelopes 3.14
Using Canon's Specialty Papers 3.17
Specialty Paper Guidlines 3.17
High Resolution Paper HR-101 3.19

3.12

Fabric Sheets FS-101 3.21
Printing on Banner Paper 3.23

4 Maintaining the Printer

Printer Guidelines 4.2
Cleaning the Printer 4.3
Printing the Test Pages 4.4
Printing the Test Page from Windows 4.5
Printing the Test Pages Using the Operator Panel 4.6
Cleaning the Print Head 4.6
Cleaning the Print Head from Windows 4.6
Cleaning the Print Head Using the Operators Panel 4.7
BJ Cartridge Guidelines 4.8
BJ Cartridge Maintenance 4.9
Replacing the BJ Cartridge 4.10
Storing a BJ Cartridge 4.15
Transporting the Printer 4.17

5 Troubleshooting

Identifying Your Printer Problem 5.1
General Problems 5.2
Clearing Paper Jams 5.3
Technical Notes 5.4

Appendix A Specifications
Glossary
Index
FCC Regulations

4.1

5.1

A-1
G-1
I-1
FCC-1

Introduction

Congratulations on your purchase of the Canon BJC-250 Series Color Bubble Jet™
Printer. We appreciate your choosing this printer to meet your printing needs.

The BJC-250 Series printers offer excellent print quality and fast print speed using both color
and black inks. We are certain you will be satisfied with this advanced Bubble Jet technology.

This Chapter:

Lists the supplies and accessories you can purchase for the printer

Describes Canon's customer support services

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Supplies and Accessories

Your BJC-250 Series printer supports excellent and unique print media
options that will allow you to produce dazzling, professional, and fun
presentations. All of these print media are specially designed and
manufactured to work with your Canon color printer so you can produce
the finest output possible.

Canon has an extensive dealer network equipped to offer you supplies as
you need them. to find a dealer near you, call the Canon Referral Service
at 1-800-848-4123.

If supplies are not available from your local dealer, you can order directly
from Canon by calling 1-800-671-1090

BJ Cartridges

You can use the following Canon BJ cartridges with the BJC-250 Series printers:

o BC-05 Color BJ Cartridge
o BC-02 Black BJ Cartridge
o BC-06 Photo BJ Cartridge
o BC-09F Neon BJ Cartridge

Note that all these BJ cartridges contain both the Bubble Jet print head unit and
ink.

Canon has more engineers dedicated to creating quality
ink for providing the best results for output on Bubble
Jet printers than any other organization. Canon does not
prohibit the use of third-party inks and the use of third­party inks does not invalidate the product's limited
warranty. However, Canon cannot guarantee the quality
or performance of your printer when you are using inks
from other suppliers.

Canon's limited warranty does not cover damage caused
to Canon's Bubble Jet products that is attributable to the
use of third party parts or supplies, including inks. The
limited warranty remains in effect for its life once that

particular damage has been properly repaired.
For optimum printing results, Canon recommend that

you use only Canon BJ cartridges

You can also purchase the optional Canon Photo Kit BC-06, which
includes everything you need to produce photo-realistic images:

o BC-06 Photo BJ Cartridge
o SB-05 Ink Cartridge Storage Box
o Canon High Resolution Paper HR-101 (60 sheets)

See Chapter 4, Maintaining the Printer, for details on the BJ cartridges.

Canon Specialty Papers

Canon manufactures numerous specialty papers, including:

o Glossy Photo Paper GP-201
o Banner Paper
o High Resolution Paper HR-101
o T-Shirt Transfers TR-101
o Greeting Cards GC-101
o Bubble Jet Paper LC-301 (water resistant)
o Fabric Sheets FS-101
o CF-102 Transparencies
o Back Print Film BF-102
o High Gloss Film HG-101

See Chapter 3, Paper Handling, for details on Canon's Specialty Papers.

Getting Help From Canon

Canon Computer Systems, Inc. offers a full range of customer technical support options
including*:

o 24-hour, 7-day-a-week, toll free automated support for troubleshooting issues on

most current products (1-800-423-2366)

o Speak to a technician free of service charge (currently Monday through Friday,

8:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. EST and Saturday, 12:00 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. EST,
excluding holidays)for products still under warranty** (1-757-413-2848)

o Speak to a technician (currently $24.99) during holidays and days/hours not listed

above regarding urgent product questions or for products no longer under
warranty (1-800-423-2366)

o E-mail support via the Canon Computer Systems, Inc. Web site

(www.ccsi.canon.com)

o 24-hour, toll-free Fax Retrieval System (1-800-526-4345)
o 24-hour Bulletin Board Service (1-757-420-2000)

*Support program specifies subject to change without notice.
**Refer to individual product information for warranty details.

Canon Canada

Customer support for Canadian residents is
available 24 hours a day (seven days a week) at
1-800-263-1121

In other countries contact your Canon Dealer.

Servicing the Printer

The Canon BJC-250 Series Color Bubble Jet Printers are designed with the
latest technology to provide trouble-free operation. The warranty card that
comes with the printer describes Canon's one year limited warranty for your
Bubble Jet printer. Be sure to read the warranty information to find out about
the different service options available to you.

Save your sales receipt for proof of purchase. In the event that your printer
needs service, you will need your proof of purchase to obtain warranty
service.

If you feel your BJC-250 Series Color Bubble Jet Printer needs servicing, you
can contact Canon on the World Wide Web to locate the Canon Authorized
Service facility (ASF) nearest you. If you do not have access to the Web, you
can call Canon (see page 1-5)

Using the Printer With Windows

This Chapter describes how to use the printer with your windows applications. It
includes:

o Installing a printer driver
o Printing a document
o Printer setup within Windows 95
o Printer setup within Windows 3.1
o The Windows tabs
o Printing speed versus color

Installing a Printer Driver

Before you can use any type of printer with your computer, you must install a
printer driver. The printer driver tells the computer what kind of printer you are
using. The printer driver also controls the various settings, such as print quality
and paper type. You define these settings within the printer driver, and the printer
driver then communicates the settings to both the computer and the printer.

You must install the BJC-250 Printer Driver for windows before you can use
the printer with your computer. See your Quick Start Guide for instructions.

Printing a Document

This product describes the general steps required for printing from various Windows
applications. The exact steps for printing a document may vary depending on the application
program you are using. Refer to your software application's documentation for the exact
printing procedure.

1

Start your

application.

2

Make sure

the Canon
BJC-250 is
selected as

your default

printer.

Start the program you are using to create the document, and open the
document you want to print.

Choose Print Setup from the File menu.

Click on the Setup button if you want to make any adjustments as appropriate for
printing your document. (See Print Setup Within Windows 95 or Printer Setup
Within Windows 3.1 for details.)

Select OK to close the Print Setup dialog box.

3

Choose Print

from the File

menu.

After making any necessary changes to the printing parameters, select OK to
start the print job.

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Printer Setup Within Windows 95

You can use the printer with all your Windows 95 applications

Opening the Printer Properties Dialog Box in Windows 95

You can open the Properties dialog box in one of the following ways:

From within any Windows application, you can select the Print or Print Setup
command.
From the Printers folder, you can select the printer and then select the Properties
command from the File menu.
From the Printers folder, you can select the printer, click the right mouse button,
and then select Properties from the drop down list.

Using the Printer Driver in Windows 95

The printing options are displayed on the following Windows 95 tabs:
General, Details, Paper, Graphics, Setting, and Control. See The Windows
Tabs section (page 2-5) for details.

For detailed information on any of the printing options, you can use Windows 95
on-line Help.

Use the right mouse button to click an item on the screen; then click the

What's This?

Click ? and then click an item.

F1

Press

command.

Printer Setup Within Windows 3.1

You can use your printer with all your Windows 3.1 applications.

Accessing the Printer Options

You can access the printing options from the Printers dialog box in the Control Panel, or
you can select the Print Setup option available from the File menu of most applications
that run in Windows.

If the Print Setup option does not appear in the file menu for your application, refer to the
user's manual supplied with the application. It should provide information about changing
the printer setup parameters.

In Windows 3.1, the printing options are displayed on these tabs: Paper, Graphics, Setting,
and Control. See the next section, The Windows Tabs, for details.

The Windows Tabs

The BJ Series Printer Driver for Windows has several tabs from which you select you
printing options and learn about your printer drivers well as your printer.

General (Windows 95 only)

This tab allows you to add comments regarding the printer driver and print test page
or a separator page. (You see this tab when you open the Properties dialog box from
the Printers folder, but not from within a Windows application.

Details (Windows 95 only)

This tab allows you to specify printer port settings, spool settings, and time-out
settings. (You see this tab when you open the properties dialog box from the
Printers folder, but not from within a Windows application.)

This tab allows you to specify page orientation, paper size, and type of print media.
(The printing options on this tab are the same for both Windows 95 and Windows

3.1.)

Graphics

This tab allows you to specify print quality, color model, and print model. (The
printing options on this tab are the same for both Windows 95 and Windows 3.1.
However, the Image Color Matching feature is available in Windows 95 only.)

Setting

This tab allows you to turn on or off the Setup Analyzer and Cartridge Detection. It
also allows you to save up to four custom print settings.(The printing options on
this tab are the same for both Windows 95 and Windows 3.1.)

Control

This tab allows you to print test pages, turn off the printer, enable or disable the
auto power on feature, and clean the print head. It also allows you to turn off the
printer after a certain period of inactivity. (The printing options on this tab are the
same for both Windows 95 and Windows 3.1.)

Specifying Your Printer Options

Be sure to use your on-line help to find out about the settings available for each printing
options.

To move between the Windows tabs, click on any of the tabs.
To save the settings and exit, click the OK button.
To cancel your settings selections on a tab, click the
To save your settings without exiting, Click the
To access the Help file, click on the
When you move the mouse cursor over one of the printing options, a help message
appears at the bottom of the tab.

Help

button.

Recommended Graphics Settings

You can select the following printing options from the graphics tab to achieve the
specified results.

Cancel

Apply

button.

button.

Using the Setup Analyzer

The Setup Analyzer allows the printer driver to evaluate your choice of choice of printing
settings. On the Setting tab, click on the green check to enable the Setup Analyzer. Click
on the red Ø symbol to disable it.

When you exit the printer driver and accept your printing settings by clicking the OK
button, the Setup Analyzer (if enabled) checks to see if any of your settings are contrary to
the recommended settings.

If there are no inconsistencies, a dialog box similar to this appears.

The inconsistencies appear with check boxes. You can use the dialog box buttons to
select or deselect the inconsistencies, and/or fix or ignore the inconsistencies.

Using Cartridge Detection

Use Cartridge Detection if you want the driver to alert you when the installed BJ cartridge
is not the correct choice to use with your Color Model setting. To enable Cartridge
Detection, which is located on the Setting tab, click the green check. Click on the red Ø
symbol to disable it.

If cartridge Detection cannot detect the cartridge type, it advises you to check that you
printer is on-line and that the cables are secure.

If you choose the monochrome Color Model and you have a BC-05 Color BJ Cartridge
installed, you'll see:

Performance Tip!

You now have a color cartridge installed in your printer. For faster printing
speed, change the color cartridge to the monochrome cartridge.

Printing Speed Versus Color

The BJC-250 Printer Driver for Windows can interpret and translate the full spectrum of
colors, up to 16.7 million colors. When printing in color, there is a significant increase in
the amount of information that the driver has to interpret and translate. When printing
with black ink only, the driver has only one color to interpret. By decreasing the amount of
colors that the printer driver has to interpret, you can significantly decrease the time
needed to translate the information. This will speed up the overall printing process.

For Quick Color Printing

In the BJC-250 Printer Driver for Windows, choose the following settings. These
selections allow the printer driver to interpret and translate 256 colors, which will increase
your printing speed. However, your print quality will not be optimized.

Media type---Plain Paper
Print Quality---Standard
Color Model---Color
Print Model---Custom
Color Selection---Fast Color

For High Quality Color Printing

Select the settings shown below to allow the printer driver to interpret and translate up to

16.7 million colors. Keep in mind that your print speed will be slower than with other
setting combinations

Print Quality---High
Color Model---Color
Print Model---Automatic

For Monochrome Printing

Use the optional BC-02 Black BJ Cartridge to optimize the printer's performance when you are
printing black text and graphics only.

In the BJC-250 Printer Driver for Windows, choose the following settings to tell your printer to print
using black ink only.

Media Type---Plain Paper
Print Quality--- Standard; Smoothing is off
Color Model---Monochrome
Print Model---Automatic

Other Ways to Improve Print Speed in Windows

To improve print speed, you can try the following:

Turn off the Print Manager in the Windows Control Panel (Windows 3.1
only).

This avoids the extra step of sending the print file to the Print Manager and may
increase your printing speed by as much as 25%, depending on the computer you are
using.

Add a permanent swap file in Windows 3.1.

Under the 386 Enhanced icon in the Windows Control Panel, add or create a
permanent swap file that is from 4 MB to 9 MB. The computer will be able to
prepare the print file faster. See your Windows documentation for instructions.

Avoid diffusion halftones.

In the Custom Settings dialog box, choose Diffusion only when printing final
output or photographic images. Choosing a Halftone setting of Fine allows the
documents to print as much as 20% faster because the computer does not need to
compute to "best possible position" for each dot.

Avoid screen matched color.

In the Custom Settings dialog box, avoid Match as the Color Adjustment setting.
The screen matching feature takes longer to process in the computer because it
requires special information.

Avoid automatic settings.

Although the automatic settings are easy to use, the computer must interpret the
printed page. This takes more time than if you select each setting.

Free up your memory.

Use only one software program at a time and unload any screen saving utilities or
programs stored in Windows background; this frees up more memory for Windows
processing.

Use Monochrome when possible.

If you will be printing text in black only, choose a Color Selection of Black and
White rather than Grayscale. Print draft documents in Monochrome rather than
Color, or use Draft print quality when printing in color.

Limit the number of colors on each page.

The computer will need to calculate and transmit fewer dots. Too many colors can
make the image confusing and less effective as well as cause the print speed to slow
down.

Use primary colors when printing presentation graphics.

Use Black, cyan, yellow, magenta, blue, green, and red when possible. The
computer will need to calculate and transfer less dot information.

Use the Draft print quality.

The printer will need to image fewer dots.

Use Plain Paper as Media Type.

The print head will make only on pass for each printed line.

Use smaller graphics and more white space in your documents.

The computer will be able to prepare the print file faster.

Add RAM to your computer.

The computer will be able to prepare the print file faster.

Use a computer with a faster processor.

The computer will be able to prepare the print file faster.