Glenn Becker <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> Hi,
>
> I have lived w/o a printer both at home and at work for some time now. If
> I need anything printed I've done so from a Mac or Windows PC. Probably
> sheer laziness.
>
> Now, however, I want to do a bit of self-publishing (poetry), and I'm
> losing the printer tied to the Mac at home, so I will soon need to explore
> printing from my Debian box.
>
> As you can tell, I'm utterly clueless - what kind of a printer should I
> get? I'll be printing mainly formatted text documents (whether formatted
> in something like Abiword or something else, I haven't decided).
>
> Will any PC-compatible printer do? What are the considerations, here?
I got a Epson 860 and ran printtool to set it up. I use it for
printing text from doc pages
and the web . I find using a2ps (with w3m for html) from the cmd line gives me
the most
control over editing print output for things like borders, columns, font size,
etc.
Since this is only for home use, i could not justify the expense of a
laser. Here's my
expense break-down: the Epson 860 cost $79 after rebate. I buy InkTec black ink
cartridges
for $6.95 each. Xerox premium paper (87 bright, 20#) 1000 sheets @$7.99.
I've compared my print output to laser output and i'd say its about
5-10% less
sharp, if you examine it very closely. Based on the above costs and about
400-500 pages
per black ink cartridge, it costs about 2 cents per page to print with the
Epson. The print
does not smudge on this quality paper and is very readable even at font size=9,
which is
usually the smallest i use.
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