Epson Stylus 780 Owner's Manual

EPSON Stylus Photo 780

Printer Basics

Printed on recycled paper.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written permission of SEIKO EPSON CORPORATION. The information contained herein is designed only for use with this EPSON printer. EPSON is not responsible for any use of this information as applied to other printers.

Neither SEIKO EPSON CORPORATION nor its affiliates shall be liable to the purchaser of this product or third parties for damages, losses, costs, or expenses incurred by purchaser or third parties as a result of: accident, misuse, or abuse of this product or unauthorized modifications, repairs, or alterations to this product, or (excluding the U.S.) failure to strictly comply with SEIKO EPSON CORPORATION’s operating and maintenance instructions.

SEIKO EPSON CORPORATION shall not be liable for any damages or problems arising from the use of any options or any consumable products other than those designated as Original EPSON Products or EPSON Approved Products by SEIKO EPSON CORPORATION.

Trademarks

EPSON, EPSON Stylus, EPSON Photo Stickers, and MicroWeave are registered trademarks of SEIKO EPSON CORPORATION.

PhotoEnhance, BorderFree, EPSON Software, and EPSON Store are trademarks and Fix-it Flix and Print Lab are service marks of Epson America, Inc.

General Notice: Other product names used herein are for identification purposes only and may be trademarks of their respective owners. EPSON disclaims any and all rights in those marks.

The E

NERG Y STAR

emblem does not represent EPA endorsement of any product or service.

CPD-11723R1

Welcome! 1

About Your Software 1

About Your Documentation 2

Warnings, Cautions, Notes, and Tips 2

Viewing Your Electronic Reference Guide 3

Watching Printer Movies 5

Printing from Start to Finish 7

Printing with Windows 7

Loading Paper 7

Opening the Printer Software 8

Selecting Printer Software Settings 9

Controlling Printing 10

Printing on a Macintosh 12

Loading Paper 12

Opening the Printer Software 13

Selecting Printer Software Settings 14

Controlling Printing 15

Using PhotoEnhance, Custom, and Advanced Settings 16

Enhancing Photos 16

Enhancing Blue and Green in Photos 17

Using Custom Project Types 18

Using Advanced Settings 19

BorderFree Printing 20

Printing a BorderFree Photo in Film Factory 20

Printing a BorderFree Photo in PhotoImpression 27

Printing on Envelopes 32

Using Special Papers 33

EPSON Matte Paper - Heavyweight 33

EPSON Photo Paper 33

Selecting the Correct Media Type 34

iii

Maintaining Your Printer 35

Cleaning the Print Head 35

Examining the Nozzle Check Pattern 37

Replacing an Ink Cartridge 37

Ink Cartridge Precautions 38

Determining Which Cartridge to Replace 38

Removing and Installing Ink Cartridges 39

Aligning the Print Head 41

Cleaning the Printer 42

Transporting the Printer 42

Problem Solving 45

Identifying Printer Parts 45

Diagnosing Printer Problems 46

Checking the Control Panel Lights 46

Running a Printer Check 47

Problems and Solutions 48

Setup and Software Installation Problems 48

Printing Problems 49

Print Quality Problems 50

Problems with Paper Feeding 52

Miscellaneous Printout Problems 53

Uninstalling and Reinstalling Printer Software 54

Where To Get Help 55

EPSON Technical Support 55

Photo Software Technical Support 56

Requirements and Notices 57

Windows System Requirements 57

Macintosh System Requirements 58

ENERGY STAR Compliance 58

Important Safety Instructions 59

Ink Cartridge Safety Instructions 60

FCC Compliance Statement 61

Declaration of Conformity 61

Epson America, Inc. Limited Warranty 62

Index 63

Welcome!

Your

EPSON

office. Print beautiful, borderless, 6-color photo-quality prints with resolutions of up to 2880 by 720 dpi. Your printer outputs perfect photos for framing, albums, scrapbooks, school reports, and more.

Stylus® Photo 780 printer is the smart choice for your home or home

About Your Software

Your printer includes the following useful photo software applications:

EPSON SoftwareTM Film Factory

Organize, beautify, and print your photos in a flash. With Film Factory, you collect, arrange, store, edit, and print thousands of photos from any source: digital camera, picture CDs, photo files, web sites, or favorite scanned images.

ArcSoftTM PhotoImpression

Arcsoft PhotoImpression is an easy-to-use photo editing program that lets users edit, enhance, retouch, or add special effects to any image with just a couple clicks.

QBeoTM PhotoGeneticsTM (Trial Version)

Powered by ImageOpTM technology, QBeo PhotoGenetics lets casual computer users easily enhance underexposed, low-contrast, color-biased, or faded photos. Users may also take advantage of basic editing tools such as zooming, rotating, cropping, and red-eye removal. To register your trial version, just follow the instructions when you start PhotoGenetics.

About Your Documentation

To set up your printer and install its software, see the Start Here poster. This Printer Basics book contains instructions on:

Viewing your electronic Reference Guide and printer movies

■

Printing with Windows® or on a Macintosh

■

Maintaining the printer

■

Solving basic problems

■

For system requirements, important safety information, and your printer warranty, see page 57. For detailed information on using your printer and its software, see your electronic Reference Guide, as described on page 3.

Warnings, Cautions, Notes, and Tips

Warnings must be followed carefully to avoid bodily injury.

Cautions must be observed to avoid damage to your equipment.

Notes contain important information about your printer.

Tips contain additional hints for better printing.

Viewing Your Electronic Reference Guide

Your printer software CD-ROM includes an electronic Reference Guide for your printer. The manual is in HTML format, so you need a browser—such as Microsoft Internet Explorer 3.0 or later or Netscape Navigator® 3.0 or later—to view it. If you are using a different browser, the pages may not display correctly.

A browser is not included on the printer software CD-ROM.

You can view your electronic Reference Guide from the CD-ROM or copy it to your hard drive and view it from there. Follow these steps:

1. Insert your printer software CD-ROM.

2. Windows: Double-click

drive icon, then double-click the

Macintosh: Double-click the

EPSON

icon.

My Computer

EPSON

, double-click your CD-ROM

EPSON

icon.

CD-ROM icon, then double-click the

The Main Menu appears:

3. Click

View Reference Guide

You see a submenu. You can view the manual from the CD-ROM or copy the manual to your hard drive and view it

Click here

from there. For details on viewing it, see the next section.

If you copied the manual to your hard drive, you can access it at any time, as follows:

Windows: Select

Start, Programs, EPSON

Macintosh: Open the

Reference Guide

EPSON Stylus Photo 780

, and double-click

folder and double-click

ESP 780 Guide

View

When you first open the Reference Guide, you see this screen:

Click here to expand the table of contents

Click a topic on the left to expand the table of contents.

After expanding the table of contents, you can click on the topic you want to view.

If there’s a right arrow , click it to view subtopics, then click on a topic to go to it.

Click the down arrow to close a subtopic list.

Closed list, click to expand

Click to go to topic

If you see an icon in place of a graphic when viewing your Reference Guide in Netscape Navigator, click the Reload button to load the

graphic.

Watching Printer Movies

Need help loading plain or special paper, replacing ink cartridges, or cleaning the print head? Your printer software CD-ROM includes helpful Fix-it FlixSM movies that explain these common tasks.

Follow these steps to watch your printer movies:

1. Insert your printer software CD-ROM.

2. Windows: Double-click

drive icon, then double-click the

Macintosh: Double-click the

EPSON

icon.

The Main Menu appears:

3. Click

Watch Printer Movies

The main Fix-it Flix screen appears:

My Computer

EPSON

CD-ROM icon, then double-click the

Click here

, double-click your CD-ROM

icon.

4. Click the poster for the movie you want to see. If necessary, select an option on the next screen. The movie starts playing.

Printing from Start to Finish

Here’s what to do to print a basic document—such as a photograph or newsletter —from loading the paper to selecting print settings to controlling the print job. Follow the instructions in these sections:

“Printing with Windows” below

■

“Printing on a Macintosh” on page 12

■

If you’re already familiar with EPSON ink jet printing, you can skip ahead to these sections:

■

“Using PhotoEnhance, Custom, and Advanced Settings” on page 16

■

“BorderFree Printing” on page 20

■

“Printing on Envelopes” on page 32

■

“Using Special Papers” on page 33

■

“Selecting the Correct Media Type” on page 34

Printing with Windows

This section describes the basic steps for printing with Windows.

(To print on a Macintosh, see page 12.)

Loading Paper

Make sure your printer and computer are turned on.

Place your paper against the right edge of the sheet feeder and slide the left edge guide against the paper. (Don’t push the paper deeper into the feeder.)

Load paper only up to this arrow

Slide left edge guide against paper

Place paper against the right edge

Follow these guidelines when loading paper:

Load the printable side face up. It’s usually whiter or brighter than the other side.

■

Load letterhead or preprinted paper into the printer top edge first.

■

Don’t load paper above the arrow on the left edge guide.

■

Always load paper short edge first, even when printing in landscape mode.

■

If you’re printing on envelopes, see page 32 for loading instructions.

Opening the Printer Software

After you open your application program and create your document, you’re ready to select your printer software settings.

From the File menu, click

. You see your application’s Print dialog box (your

dialog box may look slightly different):

Select your printer here

Make the following selections on the Print dialog box:

Make sure

■

Click the

■

it. Then click

EPSON Stylus Photo 780

Properties

button. (If you see a

Properties

on the next screen.)

is selected.

Setup, Printer

Click here to open your printer software

, or

Options

button, click

If you click the print icon on your application’s tool bar instead of selecting Print from the File menu, you may not get the option to change the printer software settings before printing.

Selecting Printer Software Settings

Once you click

Properties

, you see your printer software Properties dialog box.

The most important thing to remember is to set the correct Media Type for the paper you’re using. If necessary, click the

tab to display the settings shown below:

Main

Select the type of paper you loaded

Select the Ink color

Select Automatic mode

Select higher-quality or faster printing

Click OK

Make the following settings on the Properties dialog box:

Choose the paper you’re printing on (click the arrow

■

to scroll through the

Media Type

list). If you’re not

sure which setting to select, see page 34.

Set the Ink option to

■

To print a black text document, click

Set the Mode option to

■

to print a color document.

Color

Black

Automatic

. It’s the easiest way

to get good printing results on all types of paper.

Set the slider in the Mode box to

■

Quality

Speed

to select high-quality printing

or faster printing. (The slider may not be available for the paper type you choose.)

Click OK to return to your application’s Print dialog box.

■

For more information about printer settings, click the Help button. Or you can right-click any item on the screen and then click What’s This?.

Selecting the Settings You Use Most Often

The printer settings you make apply only to the application you’re currently using. If you usually print one type of document in different applications—for example, legal-sized documents with black ink—you can change the default printer settings for all your programs. You do this using the Windows Printers utility.

1. Click

2. Right-click the

3. Select Edition [Me]), (Windows 2000). Then click the

, point to

Start

Properties

Settings

EPSON Stylus Photo 780

, and then select

Printers

icon.

(Windows 95, Windows 98, or Windows Millenium

Document Defaults

(Windows NT), or

tab.

Main

Printing Preferences

4. Select the default settings you want to use for all your applications. Click OK when you’re finished.

Remember that you can always change the settings in your application when you want to print different types of documents.

Controlling Printing

At the Print dialog box, click OK (or maybe

) to start printing.

Click OK to start printing

After a moment, the Progress Meter appears and shows the progress of your print job. You can use the buttons to cancel, pause, or restart printing. You can also see how much ink you have left.

Click to cancel printing

Click to pause or resume

Does not appear if you are printing over a network

printing

For more advanced printer settings, see page 16. For more information on printing— for example, previewing your printout, changing the paper size, or adding a watermark—see your electronic Reference Guide (described on page 3).