Tag Archives: hp

How HP & Microsoft donate to world pollution (and Ink business)

Or: "how to set draft printing quality as default"

[warning: non Linux post]

I've had two pretty modern (year 2006+) HP InkJet printers. Their driver adds a new tab to the Windows "Printing Preferences" dialog (I really enjoy those vendor-specific dialogs!), through which  one can change the printing quality.

For 90% of my home needs, black-only draft quality is enough, so upon printing, from the "Printing Dialog", I click "Printing Preferences" and change the quality to black-only + fast/economical printing:

However, the GUI designer forgot (or the MS API doesn't allow) a "make this the default" button, which is a MUST in my opinion.

A quick digging revealed the forbidden truth, though.

So, how can we really set the default printing quality?

Control Panel -> Printers -> right click on your printer -> Properties -> "Advanced" Tab (Cuz it's only for really advanced users! are you sure you are one?) -> Printing Defaults button:

Microsoft (and Apple), as the biggest OS vendors, have the [almost] ultimate power: they set the rules for most of the world computers, and they set the defaults. By making power-saving options very straightforward, and even making the defaults environment-friendly, they can decrease the world power saving by very large numbers. Same should go with Ink saving.