INSTALLING
WINDOWS PRINTER DRIVERS
IMPORTANT NOTE: This document will help you install the Windows printer
drivers. Once they are installed,
please refer to the on-line help file that came with your driver pack for
answers to all of the most commonly asked questions regarding our Windows
Printer Drivers. The help file also
includes a thorough Trouble-Shooting section.
TABLE OF
CONTENTS
Quick Start................................................. Section 1
Step-by-Step Instructions........................... Section 2
Step-by-Step Instructions (Cont.)............... Section
3
Possible Errors During Installation............... Section
4
If You Have Difficulty Printing..................... Section
5
If you are reasonably proficient with Windows, the following
section should be all you need to install the Windows printer drivers. If you
need more detailed instructions, then please start reading at section two.
WINDOWS 9X, NT 4.0, AND 2000 USERS
Install your drivers using the Add Printer wizard. When asked which printer to install, press
Have Disk. When asked where to install from,
enter the path to where the drivers are located. If you are installing from floppies or CD, the path will be the
root directory of that drive. If you
downloaded the driver from the web, the path will be whatever was specified when
the files were extracted.
WINDOWS 3.1 USERS
Install your drivers from the Printers icon of the Windows Control
Panel. When asked which printer to
install, select the "Install Unlisted" printer option and then enter
the path to where the drivers are located.
If you are installing from floppies, the path will be
"A:\". If you are installing
from a CD, the path will be the "\Drivers" directory of your CD-ROM
drive. If you downloaded the driver
from the web, the path will be whatever was specified when the files were
extracted.
If you were successful, then you are done. If you encountered
problems, then please continue reading section two.
SECTION 2: STEP-BY-STEP INSTRUCTIONS
This section has instruction on how to extract files downloaded
from our web page. If your drivers came
on CD or diskette, skip to section three below.
Downloaded Seagull drivers consist of a single
"self-extracting EXE" program file containing compressed versions of
the various printer driver files. Your
first step is to "run" this program file, which will extract the
various driver components to a disk drive and directory of your choosing. This is done as follows:
1.
Download the
EXE file into a directory on your hard drive.
2.
Run the
downloaded EXE file as follows:
Windows 9X, NT 4.0, and 2000 Users:
Use your Windows Explorer to view the directory into which you downloaded
your EXE file. Next, double-click on
the EXE file to run it. (Alternatively,
you can use the Start, Run option and explicitly type in the name of the EXE
file you wish to run.)
Windows 3.1 Users:
Use your Windows Program Manager to view the directory into which
you downloaded your EXE file. Next,
double-click on the EXE file to run it.
(Alternatively, in the Program Manager, you can select the File
pull-down menu and the Run option. Then
explicitly type in the name of the EXE file you wish to run.)
3.
You will be
prompted for a disk drive letter and directory into which your extracted
printer driver files will be copied.
You can use the default, or specify your own. (As you will need to know this information later, be sure to make
a mental or written note of what path you used, especially if you changed it.)
SECTION 3: STEP-BY-STEP INSTRUCTIONS (CONTINUED)
This section applies regardless of whether you downloaded your
drivers from our web page OR received them on CD or diskette.
For Windows 9X, NT 4.0, and 2000:
1.
Launch the
Windows Add Printer Wizard in the normal manner:
a.
Click on the
Start button
b.
Select the
Settings option
c.
Select the
Printers option
d.
In the
dialog that comes up, double-click on Add Printer
2.
One of the
first few dialogs will contain a "Have Disk" button, which you should
push.
3.
When
prompted, enter the disk drive and directory path to your printer driver files:
If your drivers came on CD and your CD drive letter is
"D:" type in:
D:\ (Substitute the appropriate alternate drive letter for the "D" if
your CD drive is mapped to a different letter.)
If your drivers came on diskette, type in:
A:\ (Or B:\ if you use floppy drive B.)
Otherwise, if you downloaded your drivers from our web page, type in the path
to the directory into which you extracted your driver files. Unless you changed this setting away from
its default, it should be:
C:\Seagull\
4.
Continue
with the normal operation of the Add Printer Wizard, except for the Test Page
procedure.
Select "No" when asked if you want to print a test page.
(Since the Windows test page procedure assumes you have a laser, ink-jet, or
dot-matrix printer that can print out a full page, it is very unlikely that you
will be able to properly print it to your thermal label printer.)
For Windows 3.1:
If you received your drivers on diskette (rather than downloading
them), place your diskette in floppy drive "A" (or "B," if
appropriate).
Whether you downloaded your drivers OR received them on diskette,
continue as follows:
1.
From within
the Windows Program Manager, select the "Main" group and bring up the
Control Panel.
2.
Double-click
on the Printers icon.
3.
Select the
"Add" button.
4.
Highlight
the "Install Unlisted" printer option and click on the Install
button.
5.
In the
"Install Driver" window that pops up, enter the disk drive and
directory path to your printer driver files:
If your drivers came on CD and your CD drive letter is
"D:" type in:
D:\Drivers
(Substitute the appropriate alternate drive letter for the
"D" if your CD drive is mapped to a different letter.)
If your drivers came on diskette, type in:
A:\
(Or B:\ if you use floppy drive B.)
Otherwise, if you downloaded your drivers from our web page, you
will type in the path to the directory into which you extracted your driver
files. Unless you changed this setting
away from its default, it should be:
C:\SEAGULL\Win31\<driver family name>\
(Where <driver family name> is usually just the brand name
of your printer.)
6.
Complete the
printer driver installation as you normally would.
SECTION 4: POSSIBLE ERRORS DURING DRIVER INSTALLATION
If, during the printer driver installation, you got any error
messages about a file or driver already being in use, this section will help
you.
Some Windows programs keep files open that the driver installation
option (the "Add" button or icon) in the Windows Control Panel needs
to access during the installation of new drivers.
Close All Open Windows Programs
Any Windows program that is not first closed can possibly result
in an unsuccessful installation of the driver, accompanied by a message about a
printer driver or other file being "already in use."
Restart Windows
If you don't close all running Windows programs until after you
have gotten an error message, you may continue to get that error message until
you have exited from and restarted Windows.
In order to ensure that the driver installation procedure does not
encounter a file or driver "already in use" error, after you restart
Windows you must still close any programs that were launched automatically.
The Microsoft Office "Short-Cut" Bar
Since the Microsoft Office toolbar (or "Short-Cut Bar")
is itself a Windows program, it should also be closed before performing the
printer driver installation. Sometimes,
especially with Windows 3.1, you may need to temporarily disable the MS-Office
toolbar and restart Windows in order to avoid an error message. The easiest way to do this is to temporarily
remove the MS-Office icon from your Startup group or folder and place it into
another group or folder. Once Windows
has been restarted, and the driver installation is complete, you can put the
toolbar back into your Startup group and run all your programs as you have in
the past.
(Although it is not typical, some people have their short-cut bar
launched by a RUN command in their WIN.INI file, rather than through an icon in
the Startup group. In this case, you
will need to find the line RUN MSOFFICE.EXE near the beginning of the WIN.INI
file (located in your Windows directory) and place a semi-colon in front of it
before you restart your computer. After
installing your driver(s), you can remove the semi-colon in order to start
using your short-cut bar again.)
Use Your Other Programs Normally After Installation
As the above-mentioned conflicts are only a potential problem at
install-time, after the desired drivers have been installed, you will once
again be able to use as many Windows programs as you like. (Because the install-time conflict is
inherent to Windows, and not a fixable "bug" in the driver, the
preceding measures are the only available solution.)
SECTION 5: IF YOU HAVE DIFFICULTY PRINTING
The help file accessible from within your printer driver includes
a "Trouble-Shooting" section, which contains a sub-section called
"Trouble-Shooting Printing Problems." This section lists critical settings to check and a number of
printing tests that will usually get you up and running quickly if you
encounter difficulties.