While this help file cannot cover the wide varieties of printers in common use, we can offer some general information and recommendations about printers in Trash Flow.

• Types of printers: There are three main types of printers: dot matrix, laser, and inkjet. Inkjet printers are cheap to buy and work fine, but we don’t typically recommend them—the cost of ink becomes prohibitive when printing a large number of bills. Dot matrix printers are loud and have relatively poor print quality, but are the least expensive to operate and can easily print on carbonless copy paper. Laser printers cost somewhat more to operate than dot matrix, but print more quietly and produce more professional-looking printouts.
• Changing printers: You can use different printers for different purposes in Trash Flow. Click System > Printers, then go to Bills, Work Orders, Reports, Labels, or Receipts. Click Select Printer to change which printer Trash Flow should use.
• Printer offsets: There may be times that you need to fine-tune where your printout appears on the paper, especially when printing postcard bills. Click System > Printers > Bills > Offsets. Leave the Postcard Left Offset field blank for now; experiment with the values for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd offset until the printing aligns properly on the postcards.
• Changing fonts: You can change the default font and character size used by Trash Flow by clicking System > Printers > Default Font, choosing the desired options, and clicking OK. You can also change only the font used on work orders, reports, labels, or receipts under those options in System > Printers.
• Recommended printers: There are many quality printers on the market. As of 2015 we can particularly recommend the HP LaserJet P2035 or HP LaserJet Pro 400.
• Printing to PDF: Most reports already generate a PDF preview, but there may be times when you would like to save bills or other printouts as a file on your computer rather than print a hard copy (or experiment with printing options without using any paper). You can do this by installing PDF printer software such as Bullzip or PrimoPDF. Once the software is installed, it appears as just another Windows printer; when you use it to print, you will choose a location and filename and save the document you’re printing as a file on your computer.
• DOS settings: Use these options if you need to set the printer emulation mode for dot-matrix printers. You can force Trash Flow to print different items as Epson, Tandy, IBM, HP, or Okidata. Check your Windows printer settings to find out what mode the printer is currently using.