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How to change the region on an HP OfficeJet printer in 57 easy steps

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Re: How to change the region on an HP OfficeJet printer in 57 easy steps

#111

Post by mbreese »

chatmasta wrote: post #106
optimiz3 wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you do anything financial, legal, or business frequently you have to provide PDFs of signed physical documents. Every quarter I have to print->sign->scan->email multiple forms. Inefficient and wasteful? Yes. Also required by law.

Most places (government included) accept e-signature now, don't they? You might need to upload the PDF to docusign to make it a "legit" e-signature, but that sounds better than the absurdity of printing and rescanning an originally digital document.

Nope. Many places will still require a physical signature on a scanned document. Why?

Because on their end, they print it back out and keep a physical copy. That is their workflow. Many offices are still paper based.

Even at my work, we use docusign for some stuff, but will require physical signatures for others.

Printing and rescanning is absurd, but also very easy for anyone. Especially now, it’s less “print and rescan” and more “print and send me a photo with your phone”.

Re: How to change the region on an HP OfficeJet printer in 57 easy steps

#112

Post by jvdvegt »

mnw21cam wrote: post #49
Freak_NL wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I got a Brother laser printer (HL-3170CDW) and in terms of economy it's hard to beat. (Never buy an ink printer though. That advice holds.) About the random bricking though… While this printer doesn't actually brick itself, it does have a very curious failure state where if you leave it off, but plugged into the mains, it will eventually refuse to boot up until you unplug it, wait for ten minutes, and plug it back in…

I did buy a (Brother DCP-J4120DW) colour inkjet printer all-in-one device. And (surprisingly to me) it actually doesn't suck. The Linux drivers work. Sure, the ink is pricey, but it has generally been trouble-free. I left it for a couple of years without printing anything and it clogged up, but when the pandemic hit and I started having to print at home again, it cleared up with a couple of head-cleaning operations.…

I second the trouble-free experience with the dcp-j4120. Printing from Android works fine as well. It does seem there are Linux problems ahead though, as the drivers seem to support only some deprecated CUPS driver version...

Re: How to change the region on an HP OfficeJet printer in 57 easy steps

#113

Post by robswc »

I actually have no idea how printers (things that have been around for ever) are _still_ just so bad. I do get cheap printers tbf... but sometimes they just flat out do not work or can't connect or get jobs stuck in the queue, etc. I never experience this when buying other "cheap" peripherals, yet, printers just seem to consistently suck in almost every way.

Re: How to change the region on an HP OfficeJet printer in 57 easy steps

#114

Post by tmountain »

OJFord wrote: post #95
tmountain wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have a home office, and life without my printer would be terribly inconvenient. Driving to the library or copy center every time I need to print something is a nonstarter.

What're you printing? At some point I realised it was extremely rare that I printed anything other than a return label (and was doing so at the office while largely working from home, not that convenient), so I just got a label printer.

Documents that require physical signatures.

Re: How to change the region on an HP OfficeJet printer in 57 easy steps

#115

Post by regularfry »

benjamoon wrote: post #70

I bought a Brother monochrome laser printer (with built in scanner) for £250 and it was bundled with 6 spare toner cartridges. That was two years ago, we’re still on the first cartridge. The printer before that was also a monochrome laser printer and that lasted nearly a decade (only got rid of it because it didn’t support wireless and I couldn’t be bothered running cables anymore). Basically, I think monochrome lase…

Depends. I had an 8-year-old Samsung fail because a foam pad on a solenoid in the paper feed mechanism degraded past the point where the mechanism could work. I got a good life out of it, but to have it fail for such a stupid reason really annoyed me.

Re: How to change the region on an HP OfficeJet printer in 57 easy steps

#116

Post by 8ytecoder »

kmarc wrote: post #108
antonvs wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article opens with a hint at another possible course of action: buy a cheap Brother laser printer, which currently go for about $129 in the US. Read the beginning of the article for the testimony, which many people have found for themselves. What you actually need to avoid are manufacturers like HP, unless the idea of an “ink subscription” appeals to you. It’s also best to avoid ink jets both because of ink costs…

I happen to have an HP inkjet printer which I use every three or so months, and never had the dried ink problem. Always works reliably, including the display ink level function. I think this "the ink dries up!" mantra is either outdated, doesn't affect HP anymore, or I got extremely lucky with my HP printers since 2014

Same here. I’m on the third cartridge in almost 3 years.

Re: How to change the region on an HP OfficeJet printer in 57 easy steps

#117

Post by Jolter »

robswc wrote: post #113

I actually have no idea how printers (things that have been around for ever) are _still_ just so bad. I do get cheap printers tbf... but sometimes they just flat out do not work or can't connect or get jobs stuck in the queue, etc. I never experience this when buying other "cheap" peripherals, yet, printers just seem to consistently suck in almost every way.

At the university helpdesk, I worked next to a grizzled Unix veteran who had worked on their network since the 70’s. He said basically what you said: printers were always the worst component of the school’s network.

From the typewriter-like things with all their their mechanical moving parts up the the Canon color laser printers we had just deployed, they all took inordinate amounts of time to keep running.

Re: How to change the region on an HP OfficeJet printer in 57 easy steps

#118

Post by NegativeLatency »

chatmasta wrote: post #106
optimiz3 wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you do anything financial, legal, or business frequently you have to provide PDFs of signed physical documents. Every quarter I have to print->sign->scan->email multiple forms. Inefficient and wasteful? Yes. Also required by law.

Most places (government included) accept e-signature now, don't they? You might need to upload the PDF to docusign to make it a "legit" e-signature, but that sounds better than the absurdity of printing and rescanning an originally digital document.

Tried this with a couple of forms in Alaska and they were rejected because the signature looked like a digital one. (Even though my digital signature is a scan of an actual signature)

Re: How to change the region on an HP OfficeJet printer in 57 easy steps

#119

Post by AnotherGoodName »

robswc wrote: post #113

I actually have no idea how printers (things that have been around for ever) are _still_ just so bad. I do get cheap printers tbf... but sometimes they just flat out do not work or can't connect or get jobs stuck in the queue, etc. I never experience this when buying other "cheap" peripherals, yet, printers just seem to consistently suck in almost every way.

They are required by law to do certain things. You can't print black if yellow is out because the tracking microdots won't print. The region is extremely important not to be changed because different regions have different requirements.

You can't even create a printer startup and fix the issues because it's all basically regulatory.

Re: How to change the region on an HP OfficeJet printer in 57 easy steps

#120

Post by robswc »

Jolter wrote: post #117
robswc wrote: post #113

I actually have no idea how printers (things that have been around for ever) are _still_ just so bad. I do get cheap printers tbf... but sometimes they just flat out do not work or can't connect or get jobs stuck in the queue, etc. I never experience this when buying other "cheap" peripherals, yet, printers just seem to consistently suck in almost every way.

At the university helpdesk, I worked next to a grizzled Unix veteran who had worked on their network since the 70’s. He said basically what you said: printers were always the worst component of the school’s network. From the typewriter-like things with all their their mechanical moving parts up the the Canon color laser printers we had just deployed, they all took inordinate amounts of time to keep running.

It really blows my mind and will frustrate me like no other device. Usually because its last minute and I have to print something out quickly. I could plug in a 10 year old USB camera, monitor, mouse, etc. and have no problems. Plugging in a 1 year old printer is really rolling the dice.
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