Epson Stylus Color 300

Product Controls: Epson Stylus COLOR 300

Cleaning Cycle - Press Cleaning button for 3 seconds if Ink Out light is off

Printer's Self-Test - Cleaning + Power button

Nozzel Test - Load/Eject + Power button

How do I replace the ink cartridge?

If the Ink Out light is flashing, open the printer cover and hold down the Cleaning button for three seconds. The Power light should start flashing and the print head should move slightly left to the ink cartridge replacement position. Lift up the ink cartridge clamp as far as it goes. The cartridge currently installed should lift partly out of the ink cartridge holder. Lift the cartridge out of the printer. Open the new ink cartridge package. Remove only the yellow portion of the tape seal from the top of the cartridge. Don't remove the white portion. Lower the new ink cartridge into the holder with the label face up and the arrow pointing toward the back of the printer. Press down the ink cartridge clamp until it locks in place. Press the Cleaning button. The print head should move back to home position and charge the ink delivery system. Charging will take approximately one minute.

How do I install the driver in Windows 95 or 98?

Insert the EPSON printer software CD in your CD-ROM Drive. Click the Start button and select Run. Type D:\SETUP and press Enter. Select your printer icon in the EPSON Printer Utility Setup dialog box. Click OK to start the installation and follow the on-screen instructions.

What are the minimum requirements to use this printer with a PC?

You will need an IBM compatible PC with at least a 486DX2/66 MHz processor (Pentium or higher recommended), Microsoft Windows 3.1x, Windows 95, Windows 98 or later. At least 20MB of RAM (40MB recommended), 20MB of free hard disk space for storing images (50MB or more is recommended), VGA/Super VGA or better display adapter and monitor with 640 x 480 resolution (800 x 600 recommended), a shielded twisted-pair parallel cable (6 to 10 feet long and must have a D-SUB, 25-pin, male connector for your computer and a 36-pin Centronics compatible connector for the printer). Double-speed CD-ROM drive (quad-speed or faster recommended) for installing the printer software.

Can I connect this printer to a MAC?

No, this printer is not compatible with a Macintosh computer.

How can I increase my print speed?

Is your using single sheet paper to print, check that the printers blue paper thickness lever is set to single sheets, not envelopes. One thing to keep in mind is that color print jobs can produce 20-100 times as much data as a monochrome (black/white) text print, which makes color printing a heavy draw on your CPU, memory, and hard disk. The entire printing process includes the time it takes the to spool the job into the spool directory or folder. Increasing or maximizing physical RAM, lowering the print resolution, and enabling "High Speed" in the driver will also help speed up the process. Ensure that you have at least 150MB of free hard drive space available. On a PC creating a unique spool directory improves printing performance by eliminating spooling conflicts within Windows. Regularly defragmenting (DEFRAG) your hard drive In the Control Panel will also help. Also in Control Panel, Printers, click on Connect and disable "Fast printing direct to port". If you using a Macintosh disable background printing in the Chooser. If you must use Background printing, allocate more memory to the Epson Monitor. To increase the speed when printing black text only, set your printer driver to the Black ink option, try setting the Print Quality to Economy, turn MicroWeave off and High Speed on, and choose No Halftoning.

The quality of my printed output is unacceptable. What can I do to improve this?

Verify that you are using the EPSON Stylus Color 300 driver. Make sure that the printer's paper thickness and adjust lever are set to the correct paper type setting. For the paper thickness lever use the plain paper setting for regular paper ( the lever is set forward when facing the printer) and use the thick paper settings for envelopes or thicker media ( set the lever back). For standard paper, coated paper, index cards, transparencies or glossy paper/film set the adjust lever to the 0 setting. For envelopes set the adjustment lever to the + setting. Also, the paper you are using may be damaged, old, dirty or loaded incorrectly. Remove the paper and reload a new stack ensuring that the printable side is face up. If MicroWeave is off, turn this feature on. If High Speed is on, turn it off. Make sure the Media Type setting matches the paper or media loaded. Also, the Halftoning and Color Adjustment Mode options may be set incorrectly for your document type. Let the printer driver automatically select the settings for the best quality. If your output is faint, check the printer driver to make sure you have selected a print resolution other than Economy. For vertical banding, rough or grainy images run the Print Head Alignment utility to align the print heads for precise vertical lines. If the image does not contain the colors you expected, the color settings on your application software may need adjustment. Refer to your software documentation for help on adjusting colors. If the previous steps do not resolve the issue, the print head nozzles may be clogged. From the Utility section found in the EPSON printer driver, clean the print heads by performing a head cleaning followed by printing a nozzle check pattern. A head cleaning and nozzle check must be performed as a cycle. After printing a nozzle check, examine the printed dot pattern. Each staggered horizontal and straight vertical line should be complete, with no gaps in the dot pattern. If there are gaps in the dot pattern, continue with another cycle. Perform up to 6 cycles if necessary. If the nozzle check prints completely, and you're still experiencing a problem, make sure you are using the most current version of the printer driver. You can obtain the latest printer driver from the EPSON web site. The resolution of your image may also be set too low. Increase the image resolution using your image-editing software, or decrease the size of the image. Another troubleshooting test to try is moving the printer to another computer. This will eliminate the possibility of a defective printer cable, parallel port, or software issue. If your still experiencing a problem try replacing the ink cartridge.

Calibration doesn't seem to have any effect. What should I do?

Make sure that whenever you turn off the printer, you are always using the printer's power button. Never use an external switch, such as a power strip, surge protector, or power protector, to turn off the printer. If you turn the printer off using an external switch, calibration settings will not be saved.

Is the printer Year 2000 ready?

Yes, the printer is Year 2000 ready.

Parallel Port Scanners

Sometimes Epson printers have problems working with Parallel port scanners, as the scanner software will conflict with the Epson printer management software. To disable the Epson software,

• Click on Start / Programs / Epson / Spool Manager.
• Highlight your printer in the Spool Manager Program.
• Click on Queue, then Setup.
• Under the General tab, make sure there is a check in the box "Use Print Manager for this Port".
• Click on Ok, then Queue, then click on Exit.
• Click on Start / Settings / Printers.
• Highlight your printer, then click on File and then Properties.
• Click on the Details tab, and then click on Port Settings.
• If there is an X next to "Spool MS-DOS Print Jobs" then click on the X to deselect it.
• If there is an X next to "Check Port State Before Printing" then click on the X to deselect it.
• Click on Ok, then click on Ok again.
• Close any open Windows down, then Reboot the computer.