Lexmark C54x - True Black and White Printing
As shipped this 1200dpi color laser printer - C543dn works with Leopard over a network (yes!).
There is only one thing I wanted to do that was not obvious - how to force black and white even when printing originally color images, and make sure only the black toner is used. A lot of websites use color, of course, and you may not want to pay for that either in time or toner!! As you probably all know the quartz filter option has been removed in Leopard, so unlike "another OS" you don't have a simple printer-independent "print mode" setting to set to black and white.
After a lot of looking around for a manual which details the printer driver options (there isn't one - confirmed by Lexmark support) this is what I have puzzled out. BTW - There is an alternative approach that involves saving to pdf, and then using preview to resave the pdf with the quartz filter applied - but this is simpler if all you want to do is print.
Basic stuff - Printer Independent
You have to do the set up within "Print..." within in an application (like Firefox or Safari). When you select a Printer in the print dialog you can also use a Preset - it appears in the field under the printer name in the print dialog. To set up the profile the way we want it, first use the "downarrow" to the right of the printer name to access the extra print dialog options.
Now you need to get the Mac to turn everything color in the output to gray - you do this by finding the "Color Matching" option -- its in a pull-down list (half-way down the expanded dialog, in some applications that list starts with the app name (like "Mail"), sometimes its in a list that starts with "Copies and Pages" - each application chooses how this page looks, adding to the confusion). Inside that option, you select "ColorSync" radio button and find the "Generic Gray Profile" in the pulldown. This is the replacement for the quartz filter. But that doesn't mean the printer will only use Black toner... that would be too easy!
Printer Dependent bit - in this case Lexmark C543.
Now move to the "Printer Features" options (also in the list that has "Color Matching") and a new sub-list pulldown will appear - for the Lexmark it has "Quality 1" as the first option.
- In this sublist select "Quality 1" - set the Resolution field to 1200 dpi.
- Then select "Color" (still in the sublist) and set the Color Correction field to "Manual".
- Finally go to the "Manual Color" in the sublist and set all 3 of the RGB fields (Image, Text and Graphics) to "Display - True Black".
After doing all those settings, go to the Preset field pulldown (the one under the printer name at the top) and select Save As... Give it a nice name (Black and White, perhaps?). This way you can recall this preset and all the settings easily. For color you can just go back to the Standard preset.
Now you can print your monochrome masterpiece.
This way I definitely got black and white (grayscale output). Verifying that only black toner was used is not a slam-dunk but it looks like it was. Anyone who has better info on the printer driver and the correct settings (maybe this was overkill even?) please feel free to correct/enhance.
Hope this helps someone else.
There is only one thing I wanted to do that was not obvious - how to force black and white even when printing originally color images, and make sure only the black toner is used. A lot of websites use color, of course, and you may not want to pay for that either in time or toner!! As you probably all know the quartz filter option has been removed in Leopard, so unlike "another OS" you don't have a simple printer-independent "print mode" setting to set to black and white.
After a lot of looking around for a manual which details the printer driver options (there isn't one - confirmed by Lexmark support) this is what I have puzzled out. BTW - There is an alternative approach that involves saving to pdf, and then using preview to resave the pdf with the quartz filter applied - but this is simpler if all you want to do is print.
Basic stuff - Printer Independent
You have to do the set up within "Print..." within in an application (like Firefox or Safari). When you select a Printer in the print dialog you can also use a Preset - it appears in the field under the printer name in the print dialog. To set up the profile the way we want it, first use the "downarrow" to the right of the printer name to access the extra print dialog options.
Now you need to get the Mac to turn everything color in the output to gray - you do this by finding the "Color Matching" option -- its in a pull-down list (half-way down the expanded dialog, in some applications that list starts with the app name (like "Mail"), sometimes its in a list that starts with "Copies and Pages" - each application chooses how this page looks, adding to the confusion). Inside that option, you select "ColorSync" radio button and find the "Generic Gray Profile" in the pulldown. This is the replacement for the quartz filter. But that doesn't mean the printer will only use Black toner... that would be too easy!
Printer Dependent bit - in this case Lexmark C543.
Now move to the "Printer Features" options (also in the list that has "Color Matching") and a new sub-list pulldown will appear - for the Lexmark it has "Quality 1" as the first option.
- In this sublist select "Quality 1" - set the Resolution field to 1200 dpi.
- Then select "Color" (still in the sublist) and set the Color Correction field to "Manual".
- Finally go to the "Manual Color" in the sublist and set all 3 of the RGB fields (Image, Text and Graphics) to "Display - True Black".
After doing all those settings, go to the Preset field pulldown (the one under the printer name at the top) and select Save As... Give it a nice name (Black and White, perhaps?). This way you can recall this preset and all the settings easily. For color you can just go back to the Standard preset.
Now you can print your monochrome masterpiece.
This way I definitely got black and white (grayscale output). Verifying that only black toner was used is not a slam-dunk but it looks like it was. Anyone who has better info on the printer driver and the correct settings (maybe this was overkill even?) please feel free to correct/enhance.
Hope this helps someone else.
iMac, MacBook, MacMini, Mac OS X (10.5.7), Lexmark C543
