Ed Hansberry
06-04-2002, 09:00 PM
<b>PrintBoy CE and InfraReady adapter review</b><br /><br />I’ve found that in many cases, I do not need to lug around my laptop on a business trip unless it is a serious work session requiring the full features of Excel on the desktop. However, even on those trips where I do not take my laptop, I find myself needing to print something off, be it a simple spreadsheet or an email with my revised itinerary. Finding a host PC to sync with so you can transfer your info is often not easy to do, and few PC’s have an IR port to do a simple file transfer. Enter Printboy CE from <a href="http://www.bachmannsoftware.com/pbce.htm">Bachmann Software.</a><br /><br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/hansberry/review-printboyce/infraready.jpg" /> <img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/hansberry/review-printboyce/printboy.gif" /><br /><i>Figure 1: InfraReady Adapter next to an iPAQ 3800</i><!><br /><br /><span><b>Device Requirements</b></span><br />Any Pocket PC or Pocket PC 2002 device will work.<br /><br /><span><b>In Brief</b></span><br />Printboy CE by itself is a great utility to have on your Pocket PC. It allows printing via IR, Ethernet, serial and Bluetooth. But what makes it really valuable is the Infraready IR adapter, enabling your Pocket PC to print to virtually any printer with a parallel port. The adapter is as wide as a normal parallel port connection and about 2 inches long. It contains a 9V battery and has a 2ft cable with an IR port at the end. Simply plug the adapter into any printer, point your Pocket PC at the IR port and print using the PrintBoy CE software.<br /><br /><span><b>Where to buy</b></span><br />The software and hardware are both available from <a href="http://207.158.229.57/products.htm">Bachmann Software's online store</a><br /><br />• PrintBoy CE Software - $39.99<br />• InfraReady IR Adapter - $69.99<br />• PrintBoy CE/InfraReady bundle - $89.99<br /><br /><span><b>Printers supported</b></span><br /><br />The software itself is quite powerful. It supports an impressive number of printers, including all that support HP’s Printer Control language ,or HP PCL. See the screen shots below for a list of printers supported and print methods. The network printing dialog box allows you to browse your network and print from virtually any shared printer. This can be done over a modem (slow, but makes a nice high quality ad hoc fax printout), WiFi card, Bluetooth router or an old fashioned CAT5 ethernet card.<br /><br /><img src="http:\\www.pocketpcthoughts.com\images\hansberry\review-printboyce\PrinterNames.jpg" /> <img src="http:\\www.pocketpcthoughts.com\images\hansberry\review-printboyce\PrintMethods.jpg" /> <img src="http:\\www.pocketpcthoughts.com\images\hansberry\review-printboyce\ColorChoices.jpg" /><br /><i>Figure 2: Selecting the printer, port and output type.</i><br /><br />I tried several printers with the software and IR adapter.<br />• Canon BubbleJet 200e<br />• HP DeskJet 932c<br />• Epson Stylus Color II<br />• HP LaserJet 6M (IR ready)<br />• HP Deskjet 6xx<br />• Epson DFX 8000<br /><br />Color printing was supported on every color printer I tried. The colors were not quite what they were with the same document being printed from the PC, but it was close enough. It isn't as if you are going to print presentations from your Pocket PC. The only printer that it didn't work with was the Epson DFX 8000, which is an old dot matrix printer. I didn't expect it to, nor would I ever really try, but I thought it would be fun to throw it in the mix.<br /><br /><span><b>Documents supported</b></span><br /><br />PrintBoy CE supports the printing of Word documents including Notes and plain text, Excel spreadsheets, Inbox emails and HanDBase databases. I was not able to test the latter as the feature was not available at the time of my testing, but it should be similar to the printing of other files described below. You do not print from within Word/Excel/Inbox. You start Printboy CE and select the type of document you want to print, open it and print from there. The Inbox printing allows you to browse all folders and mail services installed on your device. This means though that if you print something and you want to change fonts, column widths or correct an error, you must launch the document in the associated application, make the changes, save the file and reopen it in PrintBoy CE.<br /><br /><img src="http:\\www.pocketpcthoughts.com\images\hansberry\review-printboyce\ExcelPrinting.jpg" /><br /><i>Figure 3: Selecting an Excel document to print.</i><br /><br /><img src="http:\\www.pocketpcthoughts.com\images\hansberry\review-printboyce\InboxPrint.jpg" /><br /><i>Figure 4: Selecting an email to print.</i><br /><br />The software was very easy to use and offered a wide array of printing options. The print software does tell you how much data has been printed, but does not tell you how much is left or the total size of the print job, so until you get the "Closing Connection" box, you don't know how much is left. If printing via IR, it is limited to the 115Kbps speed of your IR port.<br /><br /><img src="http:\\www.pocketpcthoughts.com\images\hansberry\review-printboyce\Excel1.jpg" /> <img src="http:\\www.pocketpcthoughts.com\images\hansberry\review-printboyce\PaperSizes.jpg" /><br /><i>Figure 5: Setting various options in printing an Excel worksheet.</i><br /><br /><img src="http:\\www.pocketpcthoughts.com\images\hansberry\review-printboyce\Printing.jpg" /> <img src="http:\\www.pocketpcthoughts.com\images\hansberry\review-printboyce\PrintingDone.jpg" /><br /><i>Figure 6: Printing status.</i><br /><br />You can print a range of cells in Excel, print the entire spreadsheet, adjust the print size or force it to fit onto a single page. One print setting missing is the "Print to X pages wide and X pages tall" that desktop Excel has. That setting is extremely useful for printing long spreadsheets as you can set it to one page wide and blank pages tall, meaning Excel will let it print as many pages as necessary while automatically making sure that it fills the entire width of the page. With PrintBoy CE, you must figure out what the custom percentage must be to accomplish the same effect.<br /><br />Word and Inbox printing also allows you to adjust the print size. When printing text, you are asked to pick the font and other options. You can also pick the margins, draft mode and orientation. Printing emails is similar, and also allows you to select what headers order are printed.<br /><br /><img src="http:\\www.pocketpcthoughts.com\images\hansberry\review-printboyce\PlainText.jpg" /> <img src="http:\\www.pocketpcthoughts.com\images\hansberry\review-printboyce\InboxSettings.jpg" /><br /><i>Figure 6: Setting plain text and Inbox print options.</i><br /><br /><span><b>Conclusion</b></span><br /><br />PrintBoy CE is a nice addition to the Pocket PC, and the InfraReady IR adapter makes it practical. It is not perfect. Several spreadsheets I printed printed blank cells where Date formats existed. Drawings in Word didn't print either. Overall thought, it does a good job of getting data our of your device onto paper. It comes with a comprehensive PDF manual that explains in detail every software setting. If you are a road warrior that does quite a bit of work on your Pocket PC, PrintBoy CE will give you one more reason to leave your laptop behind.<br /><br />• Value - 4 out of 5 Thought Bubbles - at $89.99 for the bundle, it is a bit expensive, but it quickly becomes worth it if this helps you leave your laptop behind. The faster security checks at the airport alone make it worth that. It is also very convenient not to have to constantly go back to your desktop and synchronize your data over to print.<br />• Ease of Use - 4 out of 5 Thought Bubbles - Intuitive, but there are a few too many buttons and dialog boxes to configure. Perhaps a tabbed approach might make it a bit easier to use. Being forced to switch from PrintBoy CE to the document's application also slows you down if you need to make changes to the original document after printing.<br />• Power - 4 out of 5 Thought Bubbles - The printing options PrintBoy CE offers are quite rich. Other than the aformentioned Excel setting I would have like to have seen available, I would only want for more documents to be supported. ListPro, Pocket MindMap, Internet Explorer and images just to name a few.<br />• Overall - 4 out of 5 Thought Bubbles - If you need to print Excel spreadsheets, Word documents, text, Notes or emails, I can heartily recommend this program. The price for just the software is reasonable, but I've found that I really needed the InfraReady adapter to make it practical in every situation, and that jacks up the price. You can get by with a LAN/WLAN connetion assuming your target printer is shared. The software performs exactly as advertised, and it is nice to be able to use software on your Pocket PC and not be frustrated by limitations.<br /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/thoughtcloud.gif" /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/thoughtcloud.gif" /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/thoughtcloud.gif" /><img src="http://www.pocketpcthoughts.com/images/thoughtcloud.gif" />