Showing posts with label print heads. Show all posts
Showing posts with label print heads. Show all posts

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Align and clean printer heads for a Lexmark printer

If you have a Lexmark printer within Linux, it may be difficult to align or clean the printer heads as these utilities are nonexistent within cups. I have a Lexmark z645 printer. The workaround is to use the lpr utilities to get the job done. With some modification, this should work for most printers, not just Lexmark ones.

To align printer heads:
#lpr -P <printernamewithincups> -o raw <pathtoalignutility.out>

For example:
#lpr -P Lexmark_640_Series -o raw /usr/local/z600llpddk/utility/lxbcalgn.out

To clean printer heads:
#lpr -P <printernamewithincups> -o raw <pathtocleanutility.out>

For example:
#lpr -P Lexmark_640_Series -o raw /usr/local/z600llpddk/utility/lxbccln.out

The -o raw allows the job to be performed without going through MIME filters. Note that the paths may be different depending on your printer's driver. Use the command:

#find / -iname *.out to locate the correct path for the align and clean utility.