[Printers] RE: printer-tracking--countermeasures? (Ralf Muschall)

[Pat Wood]

 >First: I would ask all members of the mailing list please to include
 >line breaks in their posts.

Sorry about that.

 >>defeat the yellow dot mechanism.  I would guess that this won't work on
 >> all printers, as some put the yellow dots in the nonprintable area in
 >> the margin.


 >I doubt this - AFAIK printers have the nonprintable areas in order to
 >avoid toner particles falling into the mechanical parts of the engine
 >and damaging it.

Actually, that's not the reason.  The printers I've worked with usually restrict
toner on the margins for quality reasons.  Quite a few can print "full bleed", and
all that I've seen (I work for a company that designs and manufactures controllers
for color laser printers) can print beyond the edges and top and bottom by simply
sending data to the laser at the correct times.  Now there could be a problem with
toner really close to the edge (<1mm) where it could be pressed out during the fusing
process and stick to the fuser, although most color laser engines can deal with small
amounts of toner on the fuser, as this can happen normally during the fusing process
(toner can lift from the paper and stick to the fuser).  In any case, the amount of
toner we're talking about with the yellow dots poses no problems for fusing in the margins.

Pat Wood