Bundled Software

MP640 Windows Driver and Bundled Software

Here you can see the install screen that pops up when you insert the included software CD-ROM in your PC; we used a Windows 7 machine for all of our software captures.

Once you have installed the desired programs, you will see several icons, depending on which applications you chose. I selected the Custom Install, and chcked all avaialbe options. After the installalation was complete, which was quite fast, I had the six icons on my desktop: Canon Solution Menu, MP Navigator EX 3.0, Canon My Printer, Canon Easy-Photo Print EX, and Canon. Macintosh drivers and software is provided on the CD also, however this review covers only a Windows 7 installation.

Clicking on the "Canon My Printer" icon opened a menu used to Diagnose and Repair Printer, configure the MP640s Printer Settings (the Windows driver), Paper Source Settings, a Printer Status window and a Troubleshooting guide.

Selecting Printer Settings brought up the MP640's Printer Properties. Above you can see a newer addition to the properties menu, called Quick Setup. Here you can quickly choose the most commonly altered settings, for Media (paper) type, print size, quality, border options, etc.

The Windows driver helps you setup the printer by choosing the Media Type, the Paper Source, the Print Quality (optimum quality is automatically selected depending on the Media Type but can also be set manually). By default the driver is set for Auto Color/Intensity. The default choices are designed to produce the best quality prints at the fastest speed possible.

Checking the Grayscale Printing box will cause a color image to be printed in grayscale. The "Preview before printing" box enables the Print Preview feature.

Clicking Custom under Print Quality lets you change the printing speed from Fast to Fine. You can also change Halftone options. Standard quality setting is the "3" position. The lower the number higher the quality (and longer the print time).

If you select the Manual button for Color/Intensity you can choose from a variety of settings that allow you to manually edit color, intensity, brightness, and contrast. 

Click on the Help button you'll call up Canon Printer Help, an onscreen guide. Here you can learn what settings are best for what media and other tips on using the MP640.

The third tab of the Printer Properties menu is for Page Setup (layout). These options let you select Borderless printing, Page Size, Orientation, Printing Type (normal-size, fit-to-page, scaled, page layout printing, poster, banner), Duplex printing with staple side and margin, number of copies and collate options.

The Stamp/Background page lets you select an image to overlay on your prints. Choose from Draft, Important, Confidential, Secret or define your own graphic. You may also select a background image.

Next we have the Effects tab, where you can turn your photo into a simulated color illustration, sliding the lever will increase or decrease the effect. You can also tint images in Sepia, Pink, Blue, Green or a custom color. The Vivid Photo option enhances green and blue colors and raises contrast. You can also enable the Image Optimizer or Photo Optimizer PRO enhancements which help produce better enlargements from lower resolution images. The Photo Noise Reduction option helps reduce speckle noise often found in blue colored areas. It has two settings: Normal and Strong.

The Maintenance page lets you clean the print heads, with options for a regular or a "deep" cleaning cycle. There are options for aligning the heads, checking the print nozzles, setting the Auto Power Off time and other Custom Settings.

Easy-PhotoPrint is a small application to help create prints, albums, calendars, stickers and special print layouts from your images.

MP Navigator EX gives you an easy way to control the scanner on the MP640. You can save images as a file to your PC or as a .PDF, attach files to an e-mail or run the OCR (Optical Character Recognition) program to convert scanned text to a work processing file.