The new HP Color LaserJet 4500 printer and the new HP LaserJet 4050 printer in the Physics Department office are available for general use from Macintosh, pc, and Unix environments. The HP LaserJet 4Si has been relocated to room 205 NSH and renamed. The new Color LaserJet 4500 has taken the identity of the old Color LaserJet in all network properties. The old Color LaserJet is in Kathy Burgess’s office and will not have transparency available. The printer names are Physcps, deptlj4k, and Dept205 Laserjet 4Si. The labeling of the color printer is to not have the word "color" obvious on the network. The color printer is not for general university use.

The upper tray of the LJ 4050 and lower tray of the 4Si are normally loaded with departmental letterhead paper. Both printers default to plain paper. The LJ 4050 and the 4Si can both print duplex (2-sided). Tray 2 of the color printer is normally loaded with transparency stock, with paper in Tray 3. Tray 1 is a special feed tray and is normally closed and empty, thus falling thru to Tray 3 for paper. It appears that the new color printer will not accidentally print on transparency, a definite improvement, since the transparency stock costs $0.75 for each sheet. For black & white transparencies, please use the copier, as that is much cheaper. The printing cost on the color printer is such that one need not worry if a black & white file is accidentally sent to the color printer; the cost there when no color is used is close to the 4Si cost. However, please do not leave the color printer as your default printer. Both new printers have Cancel buttons, so that misunderstood postscript jobs can be stopped at the printer.

On a Mac, HP now recommends use of the Apple Laserwriter 8 print driver for all HP printers. You must add the appropriate HP LaserJet printer definition files to your Mac. The installation is done with images on the Physics Mac server, on the Tsunami:Open Area:HP Color LaserJet 4500 or HP LaserJet 4050 folders. You may either use the installer or just copy the printer definition files to your System Folder:Extensions:Printer Descriptions folder. The installer for the Color LaserJet will also install the printer definition files for the 4050, as well as many other HP printers. Do not start the installer unless your Mac is in a state where it can be rebooted, which the installation will do.

Once the printer (or description file) is installed, you then need to configure the individual printers. You do this from the Chooser, once per printer. When you later reselect the printer, it remembers the configuration. In the Chooser, select the Laserwriter 8, then select each printer in the Nieuwland Main zone. Then click on Create. Click on "More Options", if shown. Then Select PPD and chose the Color Laserjet 4500 or LaserJet 4050 Series. Next click on Printer Info, and Update. Then click on Configure. For the Color printer, select Tray 3 installed, and 64 Mb memory. For the LJ 4050, select Tray 3 installed, Duplex installed, and 16 Mb memory. Then click on OK to complete the configuration. If you previously configured the LJ 4050 or 4Si without the duplex tray, you must go back into the printer Setup and reconfigure it for duplex before you can print duplex. To save space, since the whole HP printer set takes over 1 Mb, you can later trash the unneeded printer definitions in the Printer Descriptions folder of the Extensions folder of the System folder.

To print transparencies, you must explicitly select Tray 2 each time you print: do not select Transparency in this menu as this sets it for A4 transparencies, which we do not have. Any A4 print jobs will be canceled. To print duplex on the 4050 or 4Si, you must also explicitly select duplex from the Layout page under the "General" menu in the LaserWriter 8 print window each time you print. (This used to be under the Options button in the HP LaserJet print driver.) There are 2 duplex modes: long side binding and short side binding; long side would be for a normal document and short side would be for copies of transparencies or 2-pages-on-1 side-by-side printing. On the LJ4050 and 4Si, leave the paper source "Automatic", unless you want letterhead; then select tray 2.

Some printing options, such as black & white vs. color in PowerPoint, formerly shown in the Print window for the HP LaserJet driver are relocated with the LaserWriter 8 driver to a second page. To get them, click on the "General" button and go to the page for your application, e.g., PowerPoint, Word, etc.