HP Deskjet 3050 advice please.

CathWales

Hi

I received this all in one printer as an xmas present. I currently have it set up on my dresser in the living room, tho as i am in a wheelchair it is too high for me to see the controls and mono screen, so am on the lookout to change to a lower table. But in the meantime I have it working wirelessly (if that's a word!) and have conducted a print and scan test. I have the software loaded on my pc so i think I can use it via the laptop if I can't see the top of the printer controls, but went near it earlier for a look as, once switched on, the wireless light flashes and it is meant to be solid. I touched the wireless light, intent on switching it off and then on and the printer proceeded to print out 2 test copies, a 3rd only stopped when I pressed cancel, otherwise it may have carried on wasting paper! Why did it do this? Does anyone here have the same printer as i wondered what they thought of it and how it worked for them? I don't want to use it to print again until I actually want something as I don't want to waste the ink. Thanks.

davb

I don't have one of these, but the HP manual is here in PDF format.
A flashing wireless light indicates either no wireless network connected, or a wireless problem - so it's unlikely to print in that state.

CathWales

davb wrote: »

I don't have one of these, but the HP manual is here in PDF format.
A flashing wireless light indicates either no wireless network connected, or a wireless problem - so it's unlikely to print in that state.

Thank You

The wireless light does settle down (I think, I have seen it solid and not flashing) but I just printed a diagram of my printer controls on the amazon site which came out in black, which is fine as the diagram was back, but I can't seem to find an option on screen through file and print for black and colour option printing (am using Vista) but using the diagram and tilting the printer I found out how to select colour or b/w but it then wasted more paper by printing out another test page! I am hoping pressing print on the printer will not mean it will always do this and print what I want on screen! Thanks for the link I will check it out .

davb

When you print from a PC, the printing, colour selection, quality etc should all be controlled from the printer driver interface on the PC - printing preferences - B+W is usually something like print in greyscale, black only, but they are all different. You will also save ink if you set the default print mode to draft, and only select higher when you need it. I don't think there should be a need to press any buttons on the printer, unless you have something like a paper size mismatch, ie printing in letter size with A4 loaded.
There doesn't seem to be a dedicated print button on the printer, but maybe something comes up on the display? Most of the buttons on the actual printer will be to do with copy and scan.

CathWales

davb wrote: »

When you print from a PC, the printing, colour selection, quality etc should all be controlled from the printer driver interface on the PC - printing preferences - B+W is usually something like print in greyscale, black only, but they are all different. You will also save ink if you set the default print mode to draft, and only select higher when you need it. I don't think there should be a need to press any buttons on the printer, unless you have something like a paper size mismatch, ie printing in letter size with A4 loaded.
There doesn't seem to be a dedicated print button on the printer, but maybe something comes up on the display? Most of the buttons on the actual printer will be to do with copy and scan.

Thanks davb. I am currently looking at the HP manual that you posted the link to. Re the wireless button, it does settle down to a solid button and as I managed to print the printer diagram then the wifi must be working ok and have managed to scan before too. I think I will mostly be printing through the file/print option as whenever I press print on the printer, it only does a test print. Have not used wireless printing before and am probably being really thick, but I assumed that if you have what you want to print on the screen, then pressing print on the printer (and being able to choose colour options) would print that and not another test page. I'm also wondering if someone I was showing the printer too the other day may have saved the settings to something I didn't want, tho when I do a test page it comes out in colour (showing black too).

CathWales

Am I the only one with this printer on here lol? I have printed out a voucher fine but am having problems printing photos. I bought some cheap Tesco Value 6x4 photo paper just to test it and the first attempt only printed out a tiny corner of the pic. I then tried again last night and the paper just went through without printing anything and then had a message saying it was out of paper! Today I thought I would try with a bigger size paper (almost A4 kodak photo paper, apart from a section I cut that had an old pic from a friends printer) I got the pic up from the Windows Photo Gallery and chose 'print' from there. The pic I wanted to print was an old passport photo but it printed the pic that I had tried last night, even tho I cleared the print job on the pc and the printer. Can any one tell me what is going on please lol!! Oh and what option should I have chosen if I wanted to print multiple passport size pics on an A4 paper. Thanks.