Well, it wasn't necessarily the cartridge. After many repeated paper jams, the thing died. STINKERS, I'm only half way thru the job. Now I have to pay to get the rest printed somewhere and then buy a new printer. DH ran out and luckily got the the ink store right before they were locking the door! So a new ink, no printer. What luck :( Thank goodness we have a little independant print shop right around the corner. I can run over tomorrow AM and print it out myself. Still, the entire venture has eaten all the profits of the job. GGG

Ok, I put the link, but it didn't show up. Try cut and paste instead. http://scrapbooking.about.com/library/weekly/aa112400a.htm

Depending upon the country of origin [where they were made] that "aroma" may be from a pesticide spray used by the manufacturer to prevent pests from invading either the raw materials or the finished product. Personally, I'd return them and look for another manufacturer. This type of aroma is becoming quite a health issue these days...especially from certain countries. For those who are less physically sensitive to this type of thing, it might not be a problem. But to someone like me...I'd have several types of reactions to the product...not the least of which would be a lung problem...as in asthma. I discovered this when I bought a catalogue clothing item that gave off the same type aroma. No matter how often I washed it, it never quite rid the fabric of the aroma. HTH Anne

Ok...let me take these questions in order....LOL Mare wbpa I do not have to use Kodak paper, but if I use any paper other than Kodak I have to run a test print to do the setup to match the printer to the paper, but that test page is common to all the other printers I have ever used. The advantage with the kodak paper is that kodak has printed a bar code on the back side of the paper that is read by the printer and it automatically does the setup. For my purposes that is extremely handy because I often switch from Glossy, to Ultra-glossy or Matt and I don't have to mess with test prints, just pop in the paper I want and it works perfect. I find that at Staples there is a substantial difference in price between the kodak paper and the HP or generic, but at Walmart the Kodak 100 sheet pack of 4x6 paper is about $8 which is about $1 more than the HP amd the 8.5 x 11 is about $3 more per 100 sheets and believe it or not, the price of photo paper at walmart is cheaper than what you can find on ebay. Now in regards to print quality. I have on three occassions printed 6 prints on this printer, then had the same prints printed at Walmart photo center & staples photo center, then we laid the prints out side by side to see which looked better, and in all instances even the photo techs running the photo centers agreed they like the kodak prints better. jasdip,,, I don't know what model of kodak printer your stepfather has, but I have the kodak ESP 7250 all in one, printer scanner and I have never encountered any problem with the printer stopping, In fact, I have printed right down to were a print comes out missing the black or one of the colors. The printer does have a service monitor that keeps track of the ink level and when a cartridge gets down to 1/3 it will post a popup window that informs you that it is low on ink and reminding you to order a new cartridge, but it does not stop printing. For plain paper copies I don't buy printer paper. I buy the cheap $2.50/ream copier paper and when I print a document that has a photo the photo even comes out looking good on the cheap copier paper. Another thing I really like is that the ink is completely dry and the photos are ready to handle as soon as they come out of the printer. Another thing I like is that this printer has two paper trays..you can put 4x6 or 5x7 in the top tray and 8x10 or 8.5x11 in the bottom tray and you just select the size of print you want when you send the photo to the printer.