On Feb 19, 2012 I wrote There is a lesson here, on the subject of Printers, Musings, and Ubuntu.

A while back, my dad got an inkjet all-in-one scanner/printer. An Apollo, which are apparently rebranded HP things. And it was fine for a year or so, and then it developed a rather weird fault.

Every time you turned it on, it printed a test page.

I had a poke around, couldn't work out the problem. Tried resetting the printer to factory settings, removing it from Ubuntu and re-adding it, all that. Even looked in some sort of complex HP configuration utility thing in case he'd inadvertently ticked the "I have too much money, waste it all on ink, please" option or something. Nothing doing.

Secretly, I was scared that maybe it was an Ubuntu bug. Didn't want to say that to dad, though.

Anyway, time goes on; dad got used to printing a test page every time he turned it on, and started cutting the test pages in half and using the backs of them as scrap paper for taking notes on. Eventually, he got so annoyed by it that he bought a new printer -- a Kyocera Mita FS-1010, at my recommendation, because I've got one too and it's a brilliant little laser printer which works perfectly with Ubuntu and can be picked up for about forty quid on eBay. That's a laser printer, though, so it's only black-and-white; BW printing covers most of what he does (and all of the minuscule amount of printing that I do), so he only needed to turn on the Apollo when he needed a colour printout. At which point it would print a test page, print the page he wanted, and done.

A couple of weekends ago, after two years of this test-page nonsense, I thought: surely this must be fixable? Poor dad. I must try harder to fix it. So, up I went, turned on the printer, and it printed the test page. Which I then, for the first time in two years, actually looked at.

Turns out it's not a test page at all. When you put new ink cartridges in the printer, it prints one of these pages and then you're supposed to scan that same page; the printer uses it to re-align the printer heads, because it can see from the printout whether the lines are straight.

This "test page" explains all this, right there on the page, along with a set of diagrams explaining what to do for people who can't read. People who can read and just do not bother to do so are not catered for, however. So I scanned this page, and since then the printer's been stone-cold perfect.

There is a lesson here, but I don't know what it might be.

Simon

There is a lesson here, but I don't know what it might be.

Something about not expecting people to read documentation, I suppose.

Though, how obvious is it, when you actually look at the "test page"? If I was doing something like this, I'd make sure that page started with very big bold text to the effect of "important instructions for setting up your scanner/printer".

Camelek

I think, that you could save your time by writing a blog post about that, and asking someone what it could be.

Now your post could help other ppl which got similar problem.

Andrea

Not a lesson, it's just a reminder: be humble...

But I bet you already know it ;)

kamereon

this post just made my day!

took me about 10 "test"pages and an hour of searching hp's online help until I finally read that frickin' page...

guess I just gained the confidence to become a linux-geek after all. :-)

Jono Bacon

The lesson...is that you are a numpty. :-)

Oli Warner

Should have gone to Specsavers?

Nicola Larosa

The lesson is that sometimes you're an idiot, pal, just like everyone else. ;-)

Also, non-sequitur in: "That's a laser printer, though, so it's only black-and-white;": affordable color laser printers have been available for years now.

serge

That's awesome!

Yes, I don't think it's a lesson for the end user. I 100% could see that happening to me.

Never expect an end-user to read what you write? No, that's not *quite* it. Don't let important instructions look routine? (If they're routine, they shouldn't be shown?)

Eh, usability isn't my field :)

Jonas Elfström

That's hilarious! Thanks for the laugh.

When all else fails, read the manual! Or in this case, the test page.

i think that the lesson is that the configuration page that it printed out resembled a test page too much that it was perfectly normal to overlook it.

Colin Watson

I bet you never read VCR manuals back in the day either :-)

liberforce

RTFTP ? Read The Freaking Test Page ?

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Calum

Weird. My 7-year-old HP inkjet does the scanning/re-aligning part on its own, before it spits out the calibration page for you to throw away. The page shows you the "before" and "after" calibration lines, which is kinda cool. Wonder why they've stopped doing that.