Arbor Day 2022 – 150 Years of Celebrating Trees

Posted on by | Features, Printing, Support Tools | 0 comments

April 29 is the 150th year of celebrating trees on Arbor Day 2022.  Arbor is the Latin word for tree. Arbor Day was first proposed as a tree planting holiday in Nebraska on January 4, 1872, by J. Sterling Morton.  Morton served as Secretary of Nebraska and eventually became the United States Secretary of Agriculture. He had a love of nature and understood the importance of trees as windbreaks to keep soil in place, for fuel, building material and shade from the sun.  Nebraska was a mostly tree-less state at the time. The first Arbor Day was celebrated in Nebraska on April 10, 1872, and over one million trees were planted.  The idea of observing such a holiday spread to other states later in the 1870s. States today most commonly observe the National Arbor Day holiday on the last Friday in April.

In celebration of trees and Arbor Day let me remind you of a wonderful tool that will help you print and use paper more efficiently and maybe save a tree or two along the way.  The tool is the Xerox Print Awareness Tool which is a personal desktop interface that will help you and your co-workers improve your print behavior. Everyone can have their own dashboard that will help you see your print usage, compare your usage to goals and offer sustainability tips and suggestions on how to improve your print efficiency.

Please look at the following video that explains this great tool better than I can.


As you saw in the video the Xerox Print Awareness Tool gives you real-time information on how your print behavior will impact your company financially. As well as how your print behavior will impact the environment. The tool uses gamification techniques to engage users and encourage users to change their printing behavior to support environmental sustainability efforts and cost cutting efforts. Results have shown that the tool cuts print volumes by 20% and increases duplex or two-sided printing by 60%. Cha-ching!!

Should you use the tool? Consider using the Xerox Print Awareness Tool if you want to:

  • Make better printing choices
  • See how much you are saving each month on your personal desktop dashboard
  • Learn new methods to improve print efficiencies
  • Improve operational costs and productivity

To investigate the Xerox Print Awareness Tool, take a look at the brochure for the tool. Navigate to the webpage about the tool and look at the support site for the tool on the online support.

Not ready to commit to the Xerox Print Awareness tool? Check out the Eco-friendly Printing website for small changes you can make to the print driver. These small changes will lessen your office’s impact on the environment and save the trees!! Please enjoy your Arbor Day 2022 and do your part to save a tree or plant a new one. 

Earth Day 2022 – Invest In Our Planet

Posted on by | Printing, Recycling, Support Tools | 0 comments

Earth Day is Friday April 22 and the theme this year is “Invest In Our Planet”.  You have already invested in our planet by choosing a Xerox printer and you may not even realize it.  Xerox printers and multifunction devices have Earth Smart features included in most Xerox print drivers. 

Earth Smart

The Earth Smart settings are there to help you save paper, and ink.  For instance, to save paper you can print in duplex / two-sided mode.  You will cut your paper consumption in half.  See how quickly I did that math!!  Duplexing is standard on most of our printers and an option on others.  Please consider using duplexing on all your drafts and any jobs you can.  Other ways to save paper are turn off the banner pages and use the sample set feature to make sure your job is correct before printing out multiple copies.

Another Earth Smart feature is Draft mode which prints using less ink so that you can view the job on paper and decide if any additional changes need to be made without using up more ink than needed. If the draft is good and no changes are needed, then you can print it out in the normal mode. You may find that draft mode is sufficient for many jobs and save even more ink. 

These features are combined in the Earth Smart feature of the product specific and Global Print drivers.  You will find the Earth Smart setting by opening the printing preferences or printer properties of the driver.  On the first tab at the bottom, you will see a green box.  Tap or click that box and the Earth Smart settings will be displayed.

Not all machines have the Earth Smart built into the driver, but you can still set the individual settings or if compatible use the Global Driver.  Please look at the support pages for your products for specific instructions for using these earth-friendly features on your printer.

Some other things you can do to help the environment include:

  • Change your font to save ink. 
  • Use recycled paper products and recycle all paper when possible.
  • Return used supplies to Xerox for recycling.
  • Upgrading to a new machine? Always consider a Multifunction device to cut down on the number of fax machines, copiers, and printers you have in your office.
  • If you are upgrading or removing a Xerox product, we have several ways to recycle Xerox equipment.  If you would like to donate your equipment instead of returning it to Xerox, we have partnered with the National Cristina Foundation to provide a way to do so. The equipment must be in working condition to qualify for donation. The foundation can also accept donations of used working computers, monitors, and other peripheral equipment such as scanners and fax machines. National Cristina Foundation, Inc. — GuideStar Profile

The list goes on, but these are some of the highlights.  Xerox has been investing in our planet and sustainability for over 50 years.  We have created suggestions to plan for a greener office.  Please head to the Create a More Sustainable Office website and learn more.

Invest In our planet for the future generations. Participate in Earth Day and navigate to the Earth Day website to learn how you can help the planet all year long. 

Secure Print to Protect Your Documents

Posted on by | Features, Printing, Security | 0 comments

Tax season is upon us here in the US.  This is a time we give extra thought to secure print and not losing any of our documents. Have you ever had a document walk away from the printer?  Did it ever show up again at the printer hours later? Sometimes they never return, kind of like the socks that disappear in the dryer never to be seen again. 

The loss of a print job can be frustrating, but it can also be a security risk if the document you printed has confidential or private information on it such as during tax season.  You can keep the data secure by sending it to your Xerox Printer but not have it print out until you are physically at the printer to pick it up.  This is where the secure print feature comes into play.

Secure Print works by allowing you to assign a password / PIN (Personal Identification Number) to the document when you send it to the printer.  The document will not print until you walk up to the printer and release the document to print using the password / PIN you assigned.  The secure print feature is activated in the driver when you send the job to print.  I have included a sample driver screenshot here but as always models and drivers differ so your screen may look a little different.  To get more information please go to the support page and enter the model number of your device.  Search on “Secure Print” to see if the feature is available and if so, how to use the feature.

This is a great way to safeguard your documents that have sensitive information, such as documents containing credit card numbers, and social security numbers.  Jobs with confidential work product, medical information or simply your home address also benefit from the use of secure print to keep information out of the wrong hands.   It will also keep any wandering eyes from reading your documents as they sit in the output tray. The feature will also keep your document from walking away in the hands of someone else because you will be there when it prints.  You can send several documents to the printer, and they will not print until you are at the printer to release them with your password/ PIN.

Here is a short video that shows how to use secure print on the Xerox® VersaLink® C405 Color Multifunction Printer

The principles are the same for other products that have the Secure Print feature.  Check out this great security feature now!

Print Drivers and Corruption

Posted on by | Online Support Assistant, Printing, Support Tools | 4 comments

If you are having strange printing issues that come on all of a sudden for no apparent reason you may have a corrupt driver.  I cannot tell you how the corruption occurred.  Who really knows the root cause, but it does happen?  To rid yourself of the printing errors you may need to uninstall the driver completely and then reinstall the driver.

To uninstall the driver on some operating systems you must delete the print queue first or you may have to delete pending jobs that are in the queue or spooler.  You may also need to stop the spooler.  These instructions are on the support pages for your printer at Xerox.com.

Make sure you look up the instructions for uninstalling in the online support page for your printer, so you do not miss any important steps.  Search for remove or uninstall on your support page.  Follow all the steps to make sure that you completely remove the driver and its components otherwise the corruption may remain, and you will continue to see the problem. You may need to reboot your computer to complete the uninstall process.

When you re-install the driver be sure you check the drivers and download tab for your printer and use the most current driver for your printer.  If you use the Xerox® Print and Scan Experience App the most current driver will be installed for you.  The installation instructions are also available from the support page for your printer.  Look up the installation instructions for the operating system you are using.

Once the driver has been completely uninstalled and then reinstalled the printing problems should be a thing of the past. If they are not, then please consider contacting your local support centre or posting your question on the Xerox Customer Support Forum for additional assistance.

My Xerox Printer Won’t Wake Up

Posted on by | Features, Printing, Support Tools | 2 comments

Is your printer getting more sleep than you are?  Is your printer harder to wake up than a teenager facing finals?  Let’s see if we can find a way to get your machine to wake without you yelling at it, which won’t work by the way. 

First – what is the energy save mode / sleep mode? The low power mode and sleep mode are the modes the printer goes into after a set time of no use.  The low power / sleep mode saves energy, but keeps the printer online and ready to process your task when you are. 

Second – How do you set the low power and sleep modes? From the online solution for setting the power save feature:  You can set the time the printer spends idle in ready mode before the printer transitions to a lower power level.

There are two levels of Power Saver mode.

  • Mode 1 (Low Power): The printer shifts from Ready mode to Low Power mode to reduce standby power consumption.
  • Mode 2 (Sleep): The printer shifts from Low Power mode to Sleep mode for a greater reduction in power consumption.

The printer exits Power Saver mode automatically when it receives data from a connected device.

To exit Power Saver mode manually, on the control panel, press the Power Saver, Power or Wake button. For step-by-step instructions for setting the low power and sleep modes search sleep in the online support for your model of printer. 

Normally the printer should wake when data is received.  If it does not wake check the port settings for the printer.

  1. At your computer click Start, click Control Panel or Settings and the select Devices and Printers.
  2. Right-click the printer and go to Printer Properties.
  3. Select the Ports tab and then select Configure Port.
  4. Make sure there are no check marks in LPR Byte Counting Enabled and SNMP Status Enabled and then select OK. 

These steps should resolve the not waking issue on most printers.  If the printer continues to not wake when data is sent, consider posting on the Xerox Community Support Forum or contacting your local support centre for assistance. 

Printing with Windows on ARM

Posted on by | Printing, Technology | 0 comments

Xerox has created a Customer Tip to help you print to a Xerox printer using Microsoft Class Drivers for Windows on ARM. 

What is ARM?

ARM is a processor in a group of CPUs based on the RISC (reduced instruction set computer) architecture developed by Advanced RISC Machines (ARM). RISC is a microprocessor that is designed to perform computer instructions in a smaller number so that it can operate at a higher speed.  ARM processors are extensively used in consumer electronic devices such as smartphones, tablets, multimedia players and other mobile devices, including wearables.

Windows on ARM

ARM based devices are becoming more popular due to the cost benefits. Microsoft’s® offering of Windows on ARM has especially driven adoption of ARM for many individuals and businesses. However, to print from ARM you can only utilize drivers that have been compiled to match the ARM64 architecture.  Drivers built for the x86 or x64 processor architectures will not work. Most of the print drivers designed for other versions of Windows will not work for Windows on ARM. Class drivers built by Microsoft into Windows will allow you to print to your Xerox device.

Microsoft Printer Class Drivers

The Microsoft Printer Class Drivers offer basic printing capabilities for Windows on ARM. Class Drivers are V4 print drivers which are embedded in the Windows operating system. The V4 drivers offer limited functionality and utilize the Microsoft User Interface (UI). They do not have the Xerox® UI look and feel. They are defeatured and generic when compared to the Xerox product specific drivers.  Xerox has not developed these particular drivers they are Microsoft drivers.

Adding a Printer Using Windows Add Printer Wizard (APW)

A Customer Tip – Printing on Windows on ARM has been created by Xerox to help you get printing with Windows on ARM devices.  The tip includes the instructions you will need to add your Xerox printer using the Windows Add Printer Wizard. 

If you still have questions after reading the tip and following the instructions, please consider contacting your local support centre. 

International Color Day and Printing

Posted on by | Color, Printing | 0 comments

International Color Day is on Monday March 21.  A relatively new celebration, International Color Day features various activities that are related to color and its perception.  Color can attract, influence, and even increase retention.  

Color is a powerful tool for any business.  The way you present your company’s ideas with the use of color in printed material is becoming an increasingly important issue.  Studies find that using color in your documents is both impactful and influential.

Studies show that color can*:

  • Help increase readership rates by as much as 80%
  • Make your impression 39% more memorable
  • Increase phone contact by 44% when the number is printed in color
  • Increase direct mail readership by 55%
  • Help readers find important information 70% faster
  • Increase payment response up to 30%
  • Increase sales, motivation and brand recognition by 80%

Printing in color will help to get your ideas and messages read, understood and remembered. Check out 20 Ways to Share Color Knowledge for more information of the impact of color in printed documentation. 

But which color you use also makes a difference.  Colors have impact on the brain so choose wisely. A number of studies on the influence of color on brain performance have some interesting results:

Blue appears to stimulate creativity and can help you achieve a state of calm relaxation. In excess, it may encourage feelings of depression.

Red stimulates the adrenal glands and can generate feelings of energy or threat, depending on the intensity of the stimulus. However, when used in conjunction with repetitive or detail-oriented tasks, red also appears to improve focus and performance.

Yellow in small amounts can make us feel happy. However, if overdone it can lead to feelings of stress, which may be why it is so often used as the color for warning messages.

Green appears to be relaxing and may even contribute to physical health, suggesting its use in hospitals.

Pink also has a calming influence and has been shown to reduce heart rate.

Orange stimulates critical thinking and memory. It is sometimes suggested that test centers should be painted orange to stimulate performance on exams. Bring along some snacks, though, because it also increases appetite.

Interestingly the color preferences and meanings differ from country to country. If you do business or create documents for an international audience thought must be given to how color is perceived in other countries.   For instance, Green is seen as natural, financial, prosperous, growing, youthful, abundant, and healthy, in the United States. But in Columbia for some native peoples, green is the color of death and is also regarded as ugly by some.  In Egypt green is the national color, so green should not be used on packages in Egypt. Look at the International Color Guide for information on how colors are perceived in different countries and cultures.

The research shows that using color in business can dramatically improve communication, enhance productivity, and boost sales. Color has become increasingly affordable and easier to control so there has been an ever-increasing use of color in printed material.  Xerox provides many printers and multifunction printers that provide color printing. 

Xerox Color Products

Xerox also offers our Confident Color tools to provide the best possible color.   Shouldn’t your business take a closer look at color?

*Sources :

Studies:

  • Loyola College, Maryland, U.S.A., by Ellen Hoadley, Ph.D., Laurette Simmons, Ph.D., and Faith Gilroy,
  • Ph.D. Case & Company, Management Consultants. Bureau of Advertising, Color in Newspaper Advertising.
  • Maritz Motivation, Inc., Southern Illinois.

Published material:

  • The Persuasive Properties of Color, Marketing Communications; What’s Working in
  • Direct Marketing. How to Use Color to Sell, Cahners Publishing Company. Grasp Facts Fast with Color
  • Copying, Modern Office Procedures.

Time to Gain an Extra Hour of Daylight

Posted on by | General Information, Online Support Assistant, Printing | 0 comments

It is time to gain an extra hour of daylight by giving back that extra hour we got back in November.  This Sunday March 13, 2022 is the day many of us will lose an hour of sleep and time travel into the future. We set our clocks forward by one hour. Here is a great site to find out where and when the spring forward will be observed.

Those of you in states or regions that do not adhere to the Standard and Daylight-Saving time changes can stop reading now – no time travel for you.  The rest of you – this is our way of gaining an hour of daylight. It is important to remember to change your clocks forward one hour at 2 a.m. on Sunday March 13, 2022. You don’t have to do it at exactly 2 a.m. but just make sure you change the time, or you will be late to your appointments or events on Sunday.

Don’t forget to also make the change on your home and office equipment. Cyber Elves will take care of most of your electronics but please check the time on your printers and / or multifunction printers to confirm they are set properly to the new time. Make the change on your Xerox printers and multifunction devices so that your documents will keep flowing with the correct time, even if you are still feeling an hour behind. If the device time is not set correctly, it can cause confusion when you look at the time on faxes, activity reports, banner pages and other time sensitive reports and activities.

Many of the printers and multifunction printers have the Network Time Protocol (NTP) or Simple Network Time Protocol (SNTP) feature which synchronizes the internal clock of the Xerox device over a network connection. NTP / SNTP must be enabled and configured at the device in order for this automatic feature to work.  There is the possibility that printing will not work if the printer and the network are not set for the same time, so double check the clock and turn on NTP/SNTP if you start experiencing problems on Sunday.

For instructions on enabling NTP /SNTP if available on your device navigate to the support pages for your device(s) and search on “NTP” and “SNTP”.  The search will bring you how tos and solutions for how to enable NTP / SNTP at your device. For instance, here are the instructions to configure SNTP for most of the VersaLink family of printers. If your device does not have NTP /SNTP then search for “time” for the steps for changing the time on your printer. 

Enjoy your extra hour of daylight.

Xerox C310 Color Printer and C315 Color Multifunction Printer

Posted on by | Apps, Support Tools, Technology | 0 comments

The Xerox C310 Color Printer and C315 Color Multifunction Printer (MFP) have recently been released.  The Xerox C310 and the C315 have everything small work teams and home offices need: quality, simplicity, dependability, and built-in security. 

The C310 printer and C315 MFP are simple to setup with no IT assistance using the Xerox Smart Start software that makes the installation process quick and easy.  Connect to your home or business wi-fi in minutes. You can print from all your devices, smartphones, tablets, laptops, and Chromebooks with the use of the built-in mobile Wi-Fi connectivity, Apple AirPrint, Mopria and Wi-Fi Direct.  

Xerox Print Drivers and the Xerox Print and Scan Experience App provide for quick access to printer functionality and presets from your devices, laptop, or desktop. Scanning is quick and easy with features like auto-straightening, auto-cropping images, and receipt scanning.

C315 Color Multifunction Printer can utilize the optional Xerox Workflow Central Platform-a cloud-based solution that can convert physical and digital files into usable formats. Workflow Central solves workflow challenges, such as translation, redaction, file conversion, and more. There is a free trial in the App Gallery so you can try it in your business processes. 

Support for the Xerox C310 Color Printer and C315 Color MFP is available online including drivers, documentation, and a knowledge base that is updated as needed.  You can also find product videos on the YouTube Xerox Support Channel.  If you don’t find your answers online you can contact your local support centre for additional assistance. 

Check out the C310 Color Printer and C315 Color Multifunction Printer to see if they are a good fit for your home or small business. 

Additional resources:

Xerox C310 Color Printer and Xerox C315 Color Multifunction Printer

Xerox Workflow Central Platform – Reimagining work for a flexible world.

Minimizing Paper Jams

Posted on by | Printing, Support Tools | 0 comments

Your Xerox printer is designed to function with minimal paper jams using Xerox supported paper. Other paper types can cause jams. If supported paper is jamming frequently in one area, clean that area of the paper path. To avoid damage, always remove jammed paper carefully without tearing it. Try to remove the paper in the same direction it normally moves through the printer. Even a small piece of paper left in the printer can cause a jam. Do not reload paper that has jammed.

The following can cause paper jams:

  • Using unsupported paper.
  • Selecting the incorrect paper type.
  • Using damaged paper.
  • Loading paper incorrectly.
  • Overfilling the tray.
  • Adjusting the paper guides improperly.
  • Dirt, debris, or paper scraps in the paper path.

Most jams can be prevented by following a simple set of rules:

  • Use only supported paper.
  • After loading the tray, at the control panel, select the correct paper type and size.
  • When printing from a computer, select the correct paper type and size in the print driver.
  • Avoid paper that is curled, wrinkled, torn, moist, creased, or folded.
  • Do not load more than one type, size, or weight of paper in a tray at the same time.
  • Flex, fan, and straighten paper before loading.
  • Observe the paper tray fill line; never overfill the tray.
  • Adjust the paper guides in all trays after inserting the paper. A guide that is not properly adjusted can cause poor print quality, misfeeds, skewed prints, and printer damage.
  • Store paper in a climate-controlled area. The range for optimal print quality is 10–28°C (50–83°F) and 15–85% relative humidity.
  • If paper is jamming frequently in one area, clean that area of the paper path. Cleaning instructions can be found in the online support for your printer.

Following these simple rules for minimizing paper jams can reduce the possibility of paper jams. For additional information on paper specifications, cleaning the printer, loading paper and clearing jams search the online support for your printer.