I have a new dell computer.  My epson printer and scanner is not conpatible with vista. Is there a way to find a new driver that will solve the problem?

Thank you, Liz

Dear Liz,

If Epson has drivers for your printer and scanner that work with Vista, they will be on the Epson website. You are fortunate that you have an Epson product, they are quite good about providing updated drivers for their high-end products on their website.

Your first step is to look on the front of your printer, scanner or all-in-one appliance and write down the model and model number. I have two Epson Scanners, one that is almost 8 years old, and a new one that I just purchased for scanning magazines in my sewing room. My Scanner model and number looks something like this:

Epson Perfection 2450 Photo for the old scanner, and Epson Perfection V300 Photo for the new one.

When you go to the Epson website at www.epson.com, you will first have to click on the country you are in, before you will see the main page.

On Epson’s front page, point to the menu item that says, “Drivers and Support” and a sub-list will drop down. Click on the type of item you have in the drop down list, either Printers, Scanners or All-In-Ones.

I have an Epson Scanner , so I will click on Scanners.

Next, I need to select the type of scanner, since mine is an Epson Perfection scanner, I will click on the link that says, “Epson Perfection Series”.

The Epson webpage will now display a list with each model in the series, and you just need to click on your model. I clicked on my Epson Perfection 2450 photo model since it is the oldest and didn’t come with Vista drivers.

The Epson website will now display four options for your scanner;

• Drivers and downlaods
• Top FAQs For This Product
• Documents and Manuals
• Contact Support

We want to click on “Drivers and Downloads”.

The next web page shows you a list of available drivers for different operating systems. Even though my old scanner is almost 8 years old, there is a driver listed for Windows Vista 32-bit edition.

Click the link above your Windows version, and the description will be expanded like in the picture below:

Click on the Download Now link to download the driver for your device. Save the driver to a folder on your hard drive, either on your desktop, in your “Documents” folder, or “Downloads” folder.

Once the file has finished downloading, double click on it to install the driver program.

Elizabeth

 I’m new to the computer world and need some help.

Is it possible to scan an article from a magazine and send it via e-mail?

Thank you for all the information you provide.

 Pam 

Dear Pam,

It is possible to scan an article from a magazine and then send it by email, but you should know before you start that there is  more than one step involved in the process.

Let’s start with scanning your magazine article, then we can discuss how to send the article by email.

Scanning magazine articles is something that I do because it is so much easier to store my scanned articles on the computer, or even archived on a CD or DVD than it is to store the stacks of magazines that contain the articles. I even have some of my small sewing patterns scanned and stored on the computer. 

Each scanner comes with its own built-in program for scanning, so I can’t give you directions for every scanner, but I can give you directions using the Epson Scanner that I use, and you will have to figure out the equivalent steps for your particular scanner.

 1. Put your magazine in your scanner and turn the scanner on.

2. Double click on your scanner icon if it is on  your desktop, or find it in your start menu and click on it. My scanner icon is on my desktop and it is named, Epson Scan.

3. When the Scanning program opens, click on the “Preview” button. The scanner will take a quick, low quality scan and display it for you to see. Make sure the article is right side up and not too crooked. If it is not placed correctly, make the necessary adjustments, and click the “Preview” button again.

4.  In the preview window, use your mouse to draw a box around the part of your magazine page that you want to scan. The box will have a moving dashed line around the edges. You can drag each individual side of the box to fine tune your selection.

5. Back in the scanning window, you want to set up your scanning options. In my Epson software, there is a small button for “File Save Settings” right next to the “Scan” button. By clicking on the “File Save Settings” button, I can select the location where I want to save my file, and select the format I am saving my image in. This software allows me to save my article as a PDF file which works great for my needs. I use the “File Name setting to enter the name of the article, this way I can easily identify my file later.

Note: If your scanning software doesn’t have the option to save your files in the PDF format, save them in JPG format. It won’t work as nice as the PDF, but it is probably the next best thing.

6. Once you are finished with your file save settings, click the “OK” button at the bottom of the window, and click on the “Scan” button.

7. Wait while the scanner takes the scan of your magazine page. When it is done, my scanner displays a dialog box asking me if I want to add another page to my file. This is the advantage of scanning to a PDF file, the format supports multiple pages in one file. If you are scanning to JPG files, you will need to scan one file for each page of your article. I am going to click “Add Page” since my article has more than one page.

8. Click the “Preview” button, draw your box and click the scan button again.

 9. Repeat steps 7 and 8 until all your pages have been scanned.

10. After you have scanned the last page, click the “Save File” button and your PDF file will be automatically created and saved.

Once you have scanned and saved your article, you can attach it to an email message and send the email.

You can find directions for emailing photos (or any file attachment) in this article:

http://askthecomputerlady.com/questions/2009/01/email-photos/

Scroll down to find the directions for the email program you are using.

Elizabeth

Dear Computer Lady,

My family has probably 1000 picture slides of our childhood. The projector and the bulb is practically obsolete……  how can we got about transferring slides onto c.d…. is it possible without having to float a loan.

Thank you for your time, Beth

Dear Beth,

Getting your old slides and photos onto CDs is possible as long as you have the right equipment. You will need a scanner that can handle slides (some will even scan negatives) and a CD burner.

I have a wonderful scanner that does both slides and negatives, it is an Epson Perfection2450 Photo scanner. I purchased this scanner several years ago, and it was in the five hundred dollar range then. Now, Epson has a newer scanner, the 2480, on their website that does slides and negatives for just $99.

Once you have scanned your slides and saved them on your computer, you just have to burn them onto CDs to save them and share them with your family. Most computers these days come with a CD burner built in, it might also be called a CD-R or CD- RW drive.

Your CD Burner will come with software for burning CDs. There are several programs out there, so I can’t give you step by step directions, but all you need to do, is chose to burn a data CD, and drag your folders containing the slides onto the data CD window.

Elizabeth