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Manual/Quick Start Guide (7.00)
The Setup Guide makes the setup process very easy. The design is simple featuring lots of graphics and large type, leading the user through unpacking the printer, loading paper, installing the ink cartridges, and installing software and drivers.
Out of the box (7.00)
Besides the HP Photosmart C5180 printer itself, the package includes six ink cartridges: black (16 ml), cyan (4.5 ml), magenta (4.5 ml), yellow (4.5 ml), light cyan (4.5 ml), and light magenta (4.5 ml). HP does a good job with using recycled and recyclable packaging. The power supply and cord comes in the box along with a setup guide, basics guide, installation CD, and 1-year limited warranty. The test unit came fully assembled, although it is possible that other C5180 printers may be shipped with the control panel faceplate unattached. If necessary, this snaps on easily, and the printer is virtually ready to go out of the box.
Setup (3.50)
Unpacking the printer, loading paper, connecting the power cord, and installing the software was an easy process. The total time for physical setup was approximately 10-15 minutes from the time the box was opened to being ready for software installation. Installing the ink cartridges was not difficult, but the cartridges, which are small house-shaped plastic boxes, are unlike other printer manufacturers' cartridges, so there might be a small learning curve. Installation involves raising a separate, spring-loaded, plastic collar/latch for each cartridge, inserting them face out, and then closing and securing the latch. All in all, a fairly easy process.
Paper loads easily into the cassettes which reside underneath but extending out from the front of the printer. There are slots for 4x6-inch photo paper and a tray below that for up to 8.5x11-inch paper. Error messages popped up during the the first few printing attempts because the paper was not slid all the way into the cassette. Once we got the hang of it, there were no further problems.
Installing the drivers and software took about 15 minutes. Two installation CDs are included, one for Windows and one for Mac. There are two options for driver and software installation—direct installation to one computer or network installation. We installed the single option first, and this took 15 minutes. The CD menu gives options to install and uninstall programs or add another HP device using the software already installed.
Drivers & Administration (6.50)
The main interface for the C5180 is the HP Solution Center, which is a stock utility for all 5100 printers. The left side of the main window provides five options: Scan Picture, Scan Document, Transfer Images (from memory card in printer to computer), Make Copies, and Settings. The largest, showiest options are three large buttons in the center: Shopping, Help and Support, and Create. The Help and Support pages are fairly extensive and helpful.
The Scan buttons bring up the scanning utility, which only stays open if you request it at the end of your scan. The settings dialog window provides options for type of document, where to save the file to, and more detailed settings like resolution, ranging from 75 to 9600 dpi, with an option to print at an interpolated resolution of 19200 dpi as well. Embedded OCR (Optical Character Recognition) options allow the user to retain page formatting so the scanned document image file can be converted to document format. Included software facilitates this process.
The Settings button provides options to alter scan, print, and copy settings. The Printing options are Print Settings and Print Toolbox. The toolbox is the maintenance section, where tasks like print head alignment and cleaning and test page printing can be performed. An ink measurement graphic chart shows ink levels in coarse measure. A link to online sources for inks is also provided. The Configuration tab must provide more options in more advanced printers in this series, because the only option shown here is to display the ink status window.
The HP C5180 driver window is divided into four tabs: Advanced, Printing Shortcuts, Features, and Colors. The Advanced tab displays the advanced settings, allowing the user to enable or disable them. The Printing Shortcuts provides several shortcuts or ready-made profiles for quick and easy printing, including General Everyday Printing, Photo Printing-Borderless, Photo Printing-with white borders, Duplex Printing, Fast/Economical Printing, and others. Selecting these brings up a list of drop-down menus for quality; paper type, size, and source; orientation, and duplex printing. So while the shortcuts provide easy printing options, they are still customizable. When any changes are made, the option appears for adding a new name to the settings, essentially allowing the user to create their own shortcuts.
The Features tab provides these same options plus a few more within each selection. Print Quality selections are greatest here, with Fast Draft, Fast Normal, Normal, Best, Maximum dpi, and Automatic. (Maximum dpi is an interpolated resolution setting. This setting yielded very long test times. See the Performance section for more info.) Some editing options are possible, including applying Photo Fix, a HP Real Life Technology, which can remove red-eye and enhances sharpness. Accessing Printer Services, the 5180’s maintenance utilities, can supposedly be done via a button on the Features and Color tabs. Selecting this option brought up a window saying the operation could not be performed, maybe just a glitch in the software, but a problem nonetheless.
The Color tab provides grayscale or color printing options, and there is also a Color Management tab, where you can set the color space to sRGB, Adobe RGB (1998), application-managed, or Windows ICM. An Advanced Color Settings button brings up a window where the image-editing options for Brightness, Contrast, Tone, and adjustment scales for CMYK colors are displayed and adjustable with sliding bars. A stock image of colored pencils shows the before and after of the applied effects.
The C5180's scan utility is not the most user-friendly program. The Scan Document and Scan Photo menu items bring up the settings dialog box before the program itself opens. Adjustments to file type, program scanned to, and resolution can be made here. The Scan Document Settings button brings up a separate window that allows users to select the resolution and OCR settings. Clicking Scan back in the main window brings up the scan utility. The program can be set to show a preview scan or to conduct the scan directly. Settings can be adjusted here as well. Options vary with document ot image type. These options include:
| Tool |
Function |
B&W Doc |
Grayscale Doc |
Color Doc |
B&W Photo |
Color Photo |
| Auto Correct Photos |
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|
|
|
X |
X |
| Resize |
|
X |
X |
X |
X |
X |
| Lighten/Darken |
|
|
X |
X |
|
X |
| Sharpen |
|
X |
X |
X |
X |
X |
| Color Adjustment |
|
|
|
X |
|
X |
| Resolution |
|
|
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|
X |
X |
| B/W Threshold |
Set amount of white or black in image; also displays a histogram for all three colors and gray. |
X |
|
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X |
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| Mirror |
Reverses Image |
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X |
X |
| Invert Colors |
Reverses Color |
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|
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X |
X |
| Descreen |
Removes moire and halftone patterns |
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X |
X |
| Reset Tools |
|
X |
X |
X |
X |
X |
For example, resolution can only be set while within Scan Photo. Therefore, if you want to scan the same documents at multiple resolutions, like we do for our testing, the user has to exit the program and reopen, changing the settings in the Scan Button dialog window. Then the user has to wait for the program to open and for the 43-second preview scan to complete before they can scan the next page. Not that scanning the same document at multiple resolutions is something most users will do, but the scenario points out some of the awkwardness in the program.
Software (7.50)
Separate software links at the bottom of the HP Solution Center screen provide access to three bundled software programs - Photosmart Express, Photosmart Premier, and Document Viewer.
Photosmart Express is a very stripped down viewing and editing program, with options to Print, Save, Share, View, and Buy Prints. The print option brings up a simplified Print Photos window with page size and printer selections. The user can simply print directly with no change in settings or they can select the Properties buttons to bring up the driver utility. Viewing prints brings up the Photosmart Premier program and opens the image up to full-screen size. The program automatically saves the images in the Image Catalog. Photosmart Premier provides much the same options with more advanced browsing functions. It also provides templates in the Create option for making calendars, album pages, greeting cards, and slide shows. The options are pretty basic, but it gets the job done, with some selections for color and orientation. This is where HP’s talents shine, as these projects are what the average home consumer wants out of a printer/multifunction unit. There are probably not enough options here for the more advanced user, but that’s not the target audience of this printer.
Document Viewer is a simple document browser, with options to scan, print, fax, e-mail, and send to another application. It interfaces with Word when selecting the option to view a document in full page mode.
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