Make the Most of Your Home Printer

Make the Most of Your Home
Printer

Whether
you’re getting a printer for your home-based business or for printing documents
that you need for your student coursework, there are great ways to get as much
out of your printing equipment as possible.

This short
guide will provide you with some guidelines you can take into consideration when
you’re in the market for a new printer. We’ll also offer some tips on how you
can save a few bucks when you’re finally ready to use the new printer you’ve
just purchased.

Choosing the right printer

With so many
printer models flooding the market nowadays, choosing the right equipment might
seem like a challenging task. To get around this problem, however, you simply
have to juxtapose your needs with the features of the printer models you are
considering.

When it
comes to printers, being “feature-packed” is not necessarily a positive thing
simply because additional features will sometimes mean that other factors being
considered will also be affected, whether it’s the size, the price, or
something else.

We suggest
that you take into account the following:

Your available space – The amount of space you have will often
determine the size of the household appliances or equipment that you can
purchase. Space-deprived individuals can settle for a compact personal printer,
but if you have room to spare, you might also want to consider getting one of
those bigger, more robust models, especially if you need to print a huge volume
of documents regularly.

Color vs. monochrome – If you’re going to be printing mostly text
documents, ask yourself whether a fast-printing black-and-white laser printer
will be enough for your needs. Color printers are usually only purchased by
people who need to print documents in color, like visual artists or those who
print formal presentations on a regular basis.

Multifunction features – Why buy a separate scanner or photocopier
if you could instead have a printer that incorporates these features?

Speed and printing capacity – If you’re like most people, you’re probably
going to need to print just a few pages a day. However, if you have a home
business that requires you to print a relatively huge volume of documents every
day, consider getting a unit that is designed to handle a good number of pages
per minute (40 ppm is a great starting point). Also consider the printer’s duty
cycle, which is the recommended number of pages that it can print every month. A
printer with a high duty cycle can better serve as your printing workhorse
because it will be able to stand the high-volume demands of your workplace.

Print quality – One of the most common ratings
manufacturers use to measure the quality of printers’ outputs is the DPI (dots
per inch) rating. Checking a model’s DPI rating can be helpful if you are
looking for a printer that can produce high-quality images.

Tips for efficient printer use

Once you
have chosen your printer, remember that there are still things you can do to
optimize your use of it. Here are some of them:

Don’t waste paper –According the UN Food and Agriculture
Organization, the average annual per capita paper use of Americans is 333
kilograms, whereas the worldwide average is just 48 kilograms. With so many
people wasting printer paper, you can just imagine how much of it ends up in
the waste stream.

At home, you
can prevent paper wastage by practicing duplex printing (printing on both sides
of the paper) and by reusing old documents with only one of the sides printed
on. Also check the paper products you buy. Look for products made from recycled
fibers or those made from wood pulp derived from sustainably managed tree
plantations.

Use remanufactured cartridges – Instead of using ink cartridges from
original equipment manufacturers (OEMs), consider purchasing remanufactured ink cartridges instead. Made from used printer cartridges,
these high-quality recycled cartridges are produced using state-of-the-art
methods. Their quality and performance are on a par with OEM products, but they
cost significantly less.

Buy XL printer cartridges – Many OEM and remanufactured printer
cartridges come in XL variants, which contain two or three times the amount of
ink commonly found in regular cartridges. These cartridges are not bigger than
regular cartridges in terms of size; their ink yield is just much higher.

Print in draft mode – Many printers will allow you to print in
draft mode. The printouts may not be as clear as when you print in regular
mode, but the printing speed will be faster and you’ll be able to save
significant amounts of ink or toner.

Use your printer regularly – Lastly, printers are notorious for easily
breaking down, especially if you leave them sitting for too long unused. We
suggest that you use your printer at least once a week, especially if it’s an
inkjet printer, since the ink could dry up and clog the nozzles of the print
head.

Also keep
your printer clean. When it’s not in use, you can protect it from dust by
covering it with a piece of cloth or with a commercially available printer dust
cover. Otherwise, dust and other debris could get into the inner workings of
your unit and cause damage as a result.

 By : John Newman