|
Manual /Quick Start Guide (8.00)
The Easy Setup Instructions (large folding page) clearly explain the setup process. The Quick Start guide is a 102-page booklet of abbreviated instructions in one language: English. Canon only ships instructions with printers in the main language of the country where the units are sold, unlike many other printer manufacturers which usually provide multiple languages. The User’s Guide itself is loaded onto your system via the CD. This is the more helpful resource. The guide anticipates many questions and common tasks are explained clearly with the use of screen shots and diagrams. The Help and Instructions buttons, which are accessed through dialogue windows within the driver and programs, provide links to the Guide.
 Out of the Box (7.00)
The Canon MP600 Multifunction printer unit comes with a removable paper cassette, five standard ink cartridges, print head, power cord, Easy Setup instructions, Installation CD (includes drivers, software, and User’s Guide), and Quick Start guide. The guide is more of a manual at 102 pages (one language) and doesn’t repeat the Easy Setup instructions, which is both a good and a bad thing. It’s nice that they’re not redundant, but if you lose or throw away the instructions, it would be good to have the information included with the Quick Start guide for future setup. As with most printers, the unit does not come with the required USB 2.0 cable necessary to connect the printer to the PC. But these aren't that expensive so you can pick one up for less than $10. Just don't forget to get one as you won't be able to print from your PC without it.
Setup (6.00)
Overall, the MP600 was easy to set up. Other than inserting the print head and the ink cartridges, there are no parts to assemble. The print head—basically a plastic tray for the cartridges—is included in a small plastic pouch. This pops into the printer carriage followed by the five cartridges—cyan, magenta, yellow, photo black, and document black—which easily slip into the head and lock in place. Small LEDs on the cartridges light up when the cartridges are correctly in place.
The menu on the unit’s LCD screen prompts the user to perform the head alignment, which simply involves loading a sheet of 8.5" x 11" paper and pressing the "OK" button. The printer handles the alignment from there.
Canon’s instructions say driver and software installation takes 10 to 20 minutes. On our test system, the actual setup time fell right within that estimate, at 17 minutes. After inserting the CD, the setup window launched with Easy Install and Custom Install options. Custom allows the Adobe RGB color space to be installed.
One minor glitch to note: Once installation was complete, the program needed to restart to accept changes, then it said the drivers couldn’t be installed because the installation utility was open. I had to back out of the utility in order to restart the system. Once it was restarted, the drivers and all the programs were installed.
Drivers & Administration (8.00)
The printer is controlled through the Canon My Printer software. The main menu options are Printer Settings, Paper Source Settings, Printer Status, and Troubleshooting. There is a lot of utility and functionality in the Printer Settings menu. Plenty of options are provided to set paper type, source, print quality, etc. The print settings and image editing options are outlined in detail in the Print Quality and Image Editing sections of the Print Settings/Options page.
Printing profiles can be managed and added to within the Profiles tab, which provides an explorer-type window with a list of profiles on the left and the settings on the right. These are simply settings made for particular jobs within the My Printer driver that can be saved for easy access. Actual printer profiles created with third-party color management software have to be loaded in the Printer dialog box of the computer’s control panel. Any new profiles added there can be set as the default profile.
The Maintenance tab offers five different maintenance functions, including cleaning, head alignment, nozzle check, and bottom plate cleaning. The pigment black cartridge can be cleaned separately from the others. The Power Off button allows the user to turn the power of the printer off (but not on, unfortunately) remotely. A Quiet Mode reduces the noise the printer makes (not entirely necessary with such a quiet printer to begin with) and also lets you set the printer to quiet down between specified hours.
The Customs Settings function allows you to change the Ink Drying Wait Time. Lowering the time speeds up printing, while increasing the time slows down printing. This seems to have to do with the amount of time the print is running through the printer. Canon states that this feature is less necessary with Canon papers as it may be with other papers, since the Canon stock has a micro-porous surface which is dry to the touch right out of the printer.
Back in the My Printer window, the second selection is Paper Source Settings. The MP600 has three paper feed settings. The unit can be set to take frequently used paper from the cassette and special papers from the auto-sheet feeder. The second option is to have the printer take paper from both trays, feeding from one until the paper runs out then feeding from the other (this is useful when printing large jobs). The printer can also be set to take paper based on the settings of the paper feed switch on the unit, which requires the user to press the button to switch between feeding locations. It’s very useful to have this option to quickly override any settings made in My Printer.
Printer Status, again from the My Printer dialog, provides basic information about what functions the printer is performing and ink status. (You can also check on the Printer Status from the main window.) The fourth option from My Printer allows access to a Troubleshooting menu. This is a basic, most-common-problems utility, with a written but not clickable link to Canon’s tech support web page. This is where most users will go with a problem since the Troubleshooting menu is not very helpful. The better reference is in the MP600 On-Screen Manual.
Software (8.00)
The software for the Canon Pixma MP600 has Canon’s typical bright design with large buttons. Other than the My Printer admin software, the applications included are Easy Photo Print, MP Navigator 3.0 (the scanning utility), the MP600 Onscreen Manual, ScanSoft OmniPage SE 4.0, and ArcSoft PhotoStudio 5.5.
The software programs are well-organized and offer both simple and advanced options. The default settings lead the user through the various processes (printing, scanning) with simple instructions. The advanced options are not daunting since most are explained in a simple, straightforward way. The software programs don’t have the same Help and Instructions buttons included with the admin software, but the options are less complicated, so specific instructions are less necessary.
Easy Photo Print is a fairly simple program that guides the novice user sequentially through the printing process using three numbered tabs—Image selection, Paper selection, and Layout. A counter below each image indicates the number of prints, so users have to select this and remember to set it back to one if you go back to print another image from the same folder. There are also Correct/Enhance options in the Image Selection and Layout/Print tabs. Correct options include Auto and Manual settings for Red-eye correction, Face Brightener, and Face Sharpener. Enhancement includes auto and manual tools for Digital Face Smoothing and a manual tool for Blemish Remover. The tools are very coarse but produce noticeable results.
 In the Paper Selection tab, the user can select Vivid Photo and Photo Noise Reduction, as in My Printer settings. Layout/Print offers the various print selections—borderless, bordered, index, etc. Users can add a date to the image and crop the image with the trimming tool, either using the rule of thirds or not.
Canon’s editing functions and software programs are much easier to use and provide more options than most of their competitors, including HP and Kodak. Canon provides this utility for those who like more control over their editing without being strongly steered toward the manufacturer’s own editing technologies.
MP Navigator 3.0 is the scanning software. There are three ways to use the scan function. The most direct option is to scan from the unit itself, but this provides only basic options: Save to PC, Save as PDF file, Open with Application, and Attach to E-mail. It is not possible to change resolution, document/image type/size, etc. All of these options are only accessible through the software.
The main page of the MP Navigator 3.0 software has three main functions: Scan/Import, View and Use, and One-click. The Scan/Import function allows for scanning on the printer or importing images from a memory card. The View and Use tab is a browser to access previously scanned images. One-click allows users to set up preferences for the one-click buttons, accessed through the software or from the unit. These are helpful tools for oft-used settings, and there is also one handy, customizable one-click button (accessed only via the software) for any settings the user prefers.
The MP Navigator uses a similar three-step approach to the printing software: Place documents, Select Document Type, and Click Scan. Some minor adjustments can be made (the default settings are color document, Auto Detect of document size, and 300 dpi). Document type, size, and resolution can be selected. Although only up to 600 dpi is available here for some reason but up to 1200 dpi is available in the scanner driver. I can only assume Canon doesn’t expect the casual user to need scans greater than 600 dpi.
The Preferences button at the bottom of the main screen leads to a pop-up window which provides settings for where the scanned file should be saved and for assigning options to the Black and Color buttons on the unit. The options that the on-printer menu provides (Scan to File, Scan to pdf, etc.), and the file location and type (BMP, TIFF, or JPG, with 3 quality settings for JPGs) can also be configured from here. Scan settings are also controlled from here, including document type, size, and resolution (75 to 600 dpi).
The Scan menu is very limited, but as mentioned in the Software and Drivers section, more options are possible with the scanner driver, ScanGear, that is accessed through the button on the lower right of the main MP Navigator screen. Scanning at the highest resolution (1200 dpi) is only possible through the driver. ScanGear is a typical scan utility, with Simple and Advanced modes. This is most useful for scanning settings that are outside the parameters assigned to the one-touch buttons. Some image adjustment tools are available, such as color, brightness, and tone curves. There is also a Multi Scan mode, which makes it easier to scan multiple photos from a single pass. You put them separately on the scanner bed. The software detects this and saves them as separate files. This is a very easy and useful function. The resulting photos are scanned and saved as separate files.
When scanning a 4"x6" print from the MP Navigator, make sure to choose Auto Detect for paper size. Or, if you choose to select the image size yourself, such as 4"x6," make sure that the orientation of the print corresponds with the orientation of the platen glass—long edge against long edge—or if the short edge is along the long edge, make sure to choose 6"x4".
ScanGear is for the slightly advanced user. Since the default settings produce decent results, this can be used as a basic printing unit. However, the extra editing functions would be useful for someone without Photoshop or other photo editing software who would like some simple controls over their final prints.
Two other bundled programs, ArcSoft PhotoStudio 5.5 and ScanSoft OmniPage SE 4.0, are included with the bundled software. ArcSoft is a stripped-down Photoshop-like program for photo editing. ScanSoft is optical character recognition software that allows scanned documents to be converted back into text.
|
