Finding drivers for an HP printer
Hewlett-Packard is large, conservative company widely known for their quality printers. Unfortunately, their software is not as great as their hardware devices. While finding drivers on their site looks easy, there are some reefs under the water. So here are useful tips on finding and installing drivers for HP printer.
HP or Windows drivers?
Most of modern versions of Windows have many HP printer drivers pre-installed. Comparing to original drivers found on HP website, they take less system resources. Original HP drivers have aggressive advertisement features: once installed, they will offer to register your printer and buy ink/toner cartridges online. Windows drivers will never annoy you with such offerings. The downside of Windows drivers is that they don't allow to use your printer's extra functionality like ink cartridge level display and helpful messages regarding paper trays. Some advanced printing options, like zoom and economy mode are not available in Windows drivers.
Yet it may be useful to install lightweight Windows drivers, especially if you have low-end computer and don't need distracting advertisement, fancy features and extra functionality. To install standard Windows drivers, do the following:
- 1. Go to Control Panel.
- Find and click “Printers and Devices” icon (in older versions of Windows, it may be labeled “Printers”.
- Find and double-click “Add new printer”.
- Choose “Local printer”.
- Choose USB or serial port to which your printer is going to be connected.
- A list of available drivers should be displayed. Choose HP as manufacturer, and printer's model number. If exact model is not specified (like LaserJet 1315), select closest entry (like LaserJet 1310 Series).
Just a driver or a full solution?
For most printers, HP website will offer two options: to download driver only or 'full solution'. Like in previous section, raw driver will drain less system resources and usually contains less distracting pop-ups like advertisement and offers to buy stuff. It is recommended to install driver only if you have printer, and full solution if you have multifunctional device (printer + scanner + something else).
The driver covers all printing functionality, including HP-specific options like zooming, post-processing, configuring trays, etc. Applications found in full solution mainly deal with extra functionality like scanning and buying extra cartridges online. Perhaps the most useful application is one that shows printer status and toner/ink levels.