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Saturday 23 April 2016

HP Envy 7640 printer under Linux: review and tips

This printer works well under Linux.

I found that the HP Linux Imaging and Printing (HPLIP) didn't find the printer automatically but with an Ethernet connection it was only necessary to tell HPLIP the internet address. The printer/scanner was then ready to use.

The printer requires a properly configured Ethernet connection if you are using a wired network setup. Otherwise the printer might not wake up from sleep mode even if you press the front panel to activate it. For some reason I found that a connection through a switch to a router caused this issue but a direct connection to the router was fine.

Xsane works well, in addition to flatbed scanning you can carry out multipage scanning using the document feeder.

There is a useful, configurable HP Web interface to the printer with options to scan, configure settings, view usage statistics etc. Sometimes, but not always, I find that accessing the Web interface causes the HPLIP interface to freeze, and you have to close down the Web interface to access the HPLIP interface again. I also found that Firefox displayed blank PDF pages after scanning via the Web interface. A message is displayed: "This PDF document might not be displayed correctly". Clicking on the Firefox button  Open with a different viewer and then choosing Evince resolved this for me.

Certain actions like aligning the printer and cleaning the cartridges can't apparently be carried out by using HPLIP or the Web interface, you have to
use the front panel of the printer.