Kodak Office Hero 6.1 Driver

[Yufei Labbe]

Theautoduplexer that flips pages over for double-sided printing adds a bulky protrusion to the back of the printer, but the extra weight is offset by its economic benefits for offices that print more than the usual amount. Kodak estimates that the Hero 6.1 can handle about 12,000 printed pages a month before it loses steam, which should be more than enough for SMBs and home offices with moderate to large output.

The main paper tray for everyday printing rests at the bottom of the unit and can hold up to 200 sheets of plain paper, or 70 sheets of photo paper. At the $200 range, I expected a dual paper tray supporting two separate media sizes, but the Hero 6.1 has only the single feeder with adjustable plastic paper guides. That said, amateur photographers hunting for the right device to materialize their photos can spend the same and get more photo-friendly features like siloed ink cartridges and a separate photo paper tray from Canon and Hewlett-Packard.

The Office Hero 6.1 uses the same model 10B and 10C cartridges as the ESP series, with a single tank for black ink and a separate five-ink cartridge of pigment color. Kodak claims its ink gives the lowest cost per page in the industry, and my calculations based on the company's XL-capacity cartridges corroborates those claims at just 2.4 cents per black page and 7.2 cents for a page of color. Keep in mind that all five inks are bundled into one cartridge, so you'll need to buy a new one when the first color runs out. That's why it makes more fiscal sense for a photographer wanting to print snapshots to get a printer with five or even six individual ink tanks.

Kodak offers several ways to print to the Hero 6.1 aside from the standard USB connection. You can hook it up to an office network using wired Ethernet or wirelessly via its 802.11 b/g/n Wi-Fi server.

Headaches usually arrive quickly when it's time to connect a printer to a wireless router, but I'm impressed with Kodak's streamlined handshaking--the printer is set up for the Wi-Fi Protected Setup (WPS) computing standard, which reduces the process to a push of a button, if you have a compatible wireless router. It's just as easy to connect without WPS, however, but you'll need to create an ad hoc connection using the USB cable first. Unfortunately, Kodak doesn't provide this cable in the box. The Office Hero is also accessible remotely using the free Kodak Pic Flick App for iOS, Android, and BlackBerry devices. Though the application can't be used for heavy photo editing, you can specify the print quality and canvas size from 2x3 inches all the way up to the standard 8.5x11.

Printing from the cloud is perhaps the most convenient feature of the Hero 6.1, and you get two simple ways to print from any computer with an Internet connection. Google Cloud Print is a free utility that lets multiple users share your printer over the Web with a simple username registration and a compatible device running Google. Google stores your device information on its servers to keep your computer clutter-free and simplifies the process even further by keeping drivers and firmware up-to-date.

The other side of the Hero 6.1's cloud printing is Kodak Email Print. It's designed to release users from the shackles of the print driver by assigning a unique e-mail address to every connected printer, which you can use to send jobs directly from any connected device. When you send an e-mail to the printer, you can choose to either attach a compatible file (Microsoft Word, Microsoft PowerPoint, Microsoft Excel, PDF, text files, BMP, PNG, GIF, TIFF) for formatted documents or just paste a body of text in plain or HTML form into the body of the e-mail. Kodak provides the e-mail address for your particular device during the wireless setup process, and the virtual instructions walk you through it step by step.

Once the printer eventually spits out your job, you'll be impressed with the resolution quality. Graphic documents and everyday text prints came out looking the best out of all the results from the printers I compared, with acceptable saturation levels that I wouldn't hesitate to use as presentation materials for an office meeting. Scan quality is satisfactory as well thanks to the Hero 6.1's new 2,400dpi scanning bay, and the upgrade resolves the dark compression issues we've seen in previous Kodak models.

Service and support

Kodak supports the Office Hero 6.1 with a one-year warranty for toll-free phone and online-chat tech support available every day. The Kodak Web site provides access to manuals, driver downloads, troubleshooting tips, graphic tutorials, and a list of frequently asked questions.

Conclusion

The Office Hero 6.1 is a smart performer for offices that need universal printing access from stationary computers and mobile devices. With an attractive design that shows improvement over previous models and innovative features like an automatic paper sensor as well as the Kodak Pic Flick app, the Kodak Office Hero 6.1 is worth your dollar.

Printer won't print in black. Colour works. I have replaced black cartridge with no results. Have used mostly black before, so it's strange that black won't work while colour does. Is it a built-in fault? At my wits end.

Hi I am new to the forum, had the same trouble with my ESP 7250 would not print black and white, after trawling the net for solutions tryed every thing from printer solution to new print head still did not print black and white I uninstalled the the software reinstalled still nothing, tryed to download the latest software but said it was up to date I then started looking at the driver type and bingo there it was a generic Windows driver that was preventing the Kodak driver being installed I deleted it from print manager rebooted the pc run a word doc off with black and white print perfect, this was after three weeks off and on trying different solutions I believe that during one of many windows updates it had installed this generic driver hope this review helps someone with a similar problem looking at all the comments a lot of people are suffering the same problems

I've ran into the same issue with several of my customers. 95% of the time they are using off-brand inkjet cartridges that are cheaply sold -- and even when they do work, the circuitry typically fails within a few months.

Next, twist the end of a paper towel and stick it into the water then DAB, do not rub, DAB the cartridge where the ink flows out -- without wetting the little circuit board. Do this a couple of times. You should start seeing the ink flow onto the paper towel. Once you do, use a dry part of the paper towel and blot it dry, do not scrub.

Once you do this consult your manual for replacing ink cartridges -- re-install the (in this case black) cartridge and turn a test print (bonus: set your printer to b&w only so not to burn up your color ink -- drop a small photo into a word processing document.)

Same issue here. It worked until my black cartridge got low. I did what I always do, changed the black ink cartridge and it didn't print from that point on. I thought it was the cartridge problem but I tried 3 (used an off brand), then went to the store to get a Kodak black cartridge and it still doesn't print in black. I loved this printer until this happened. Don't make me lose my faith in Kodak!

buy a laser printer, and you will be extremely happy you did! they're very competitively priced these days with inkjet printers, do not have even a fraction of the problems inkjets do because they use what's called a toner cartridge which last many months-i change my toner cartridges about once a year give or take.

yes, literally they're more expensive than inkjet cartridges, but compared to how long they last, you're actually spending less money than if you totaled up the number of times you had to buy inkjet cartridges just to equal the length of time laser toner cartridges last in comparison to inkjet cartridges.

I have an ESP 9,and my printer stopped printing black ink. I did a copy function and still no ink so I knew it was the printer and not the driver. I changed both colour and black to no avail and tried cleaning the print head with a damp cloth, also to no avail. Figuring I had nothing to lose I ran the hot tap in the kitchen and allowed the hot water to flow into the print head rinsing out each of the colours and the two blacks. You could literally see the ink residue flowing through into the sink. After a couple of minutes I gave the print head a shake, gentle wipe with paper towel and re-assembled the print head and cartridges. Colour is a bit squiffy but black is now perfect. I have that many documents to print today and tomorrow that I would have had to buy another printer. Interesting to note, our printer is located next to the fireplace and we have had the fire on more than normal. When I get the chance I will relocate the printer to a cooler more ventilated place.

I ended up spending too many hours messing around with the printer in the following days. I have just spent 229.99 on an Epson ET-2550 which included 4 pots of ink that will print up to 7,000 pages and potentially will last 2 years. There is a black, red, yellow and blue tank to fill, they are clearly visible from the side of the printer. When they run out it will cost me 9.99 for each pot of ink. The printer will pay for itself in the first year, it is so fast compared to the Kodak, no clunking around after it's been resting. I will be taking the Kodak to the local waste tip on Monday.

Simon Connelly was spot on for me. Black was working; I had to take it out for a day. Then no black ink when printing. Under the hot tap, lots of ink poured out, and hey presto, now the black is normal. Awaiting a new printhead, as only just saw this tip. Kodak are giving printheads away (Cost p&p only); must mean they have little confidence in them!!

If you copy something on the scan that has black and it prints it fine its a software issue. If it don't then the print head may have dried up. I recommend replacing the print head. You can wet down a paper towel with rubbing alcohol and dab the print head and see if you can get the ink flowing again it worked on mine. I also found if you leave it turned on so that it can run a cleaning cycle once in awile this can be avoided. Hope this helps. Copied from this website...

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